All Crossed Rogues
by The Man In The Alley
Summary: At the end of 9:41, Varric seeks out Hawke to save Merrill from disaster. UPDATE: The Nevarran Job 4/5- In the first flashback to the tragedy three years ago, Isabela, Varric, Hawke and Merrill fend off bandits attempting to ransack a Nevarran noble's caravan.
1. Prologue: The End of It All

All Crossed Rogues

**(*)** - An Asterisk denotes a few words from Arthur, a guy I know who talks too much, at the end.

**Disclaimer**- Bioware and EA assume direct control of all intellectual property. They know this hurts me. They will destroy me if they must.

* * *

Down by the riverside's,  
Bound to be a better ride,  
Than what you've got planned.  
Carry a gun in your hand.

Look around.  
Leaves are brown,  
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

The Bangles- "Hazy Shade of Winter"*****

Prologue

The End of It All

9:41 Dragon  
31st Haring

Tevinter Imperium  
Valarian Fields

The celebrations had been going from the early afternoon well into the night, with dozens of revelers dancing and drinking and lighting small fires to sing songs by as the sun's light dissipated from the sky.

It was the last day of the year, and Putter Smith was certain it was also the best.

An outside observer that night, out there amongst the thigh-high stalks of oat and wheat and rustling reeds of the ever-brown Valarian Fields would think that this was because he was very drunk off the pinkberry wine and high on quickroot. They'd be mistaken, though, as Putter Smith was a bandit by trade and was always drunk or high or both, even when plying his trade on some unlucky merchant caravan or an unwary group of travelers.

They might also think that Putter Smith's best day was due to the bare-breasted tart straddling his waist and giggling as they lay together on a grassy knoll, trading sloppy, breathless kisses. But they'd be wrong in this as well. Putter Smith was not an unattractive man. He possessed a tongue slick enough to coax a lass out of her clothes and a mind sharp enough to sense the oncoming presence of a husband or father. Due to these traits, Putter had known the touch of many a wanton maiden and had survived long enough to spread tales of the secrets they held in taverns across the expanse of the Tevinter Imperium, much to the enjoyment of the other patrons.

No, the only person who truly could've known why Putter Smith was so blissful was several yards away from him, nestled comfortably in a ditch at the base of a hill. He was drooling into the dirt, sleeping peacefully as a lowland mutt urinated on his boots His name was Clause Vilhelm. Clause was a traveling minstrel who had, several months prior, saved Putter from a group of mercenaries looking to slit his throat over a dice game gone wrong. Putter had managed to cheat them out of a half-dozen rolls before one of the extra die he carried had tumbled out onto the table after too vigorous a roll. Clause, having watched from the beginning of the game, had interceded on the bandit's behalf as blades were drawn.

Through a series of intricate lies involving the Imperial Magi Lawbook, a plan to assassinate a wealthy Rivaini noble and even a well-worn, professionally forged letter of diplomatic immunity from the Black Divine himself, Clause managed to convince the brigands to not only let Putter go, but to relinquish a substantial amount of coin as well. Upon leaving the tavern, the two immediately began to argue over whether or not an Imperial Magi Lawbook even existed, with Clause swearing repeatedly on his mother's grave that he'd read it cover to cover once while imprisoned in the capital. They were inseparable after that day, bonded over three ideals they shared above all else; firstly, happiness was the most important thing in the world. Secondly, money was the key to happiness. And thirdly, that other people's money was the best kind of money.

Within the next few months of traveling together, Clause had instilled in Putter the fourth ideal that had set him free from a life of regret. That other people's money could be obtained without bloodshed. And once he'd embraced this notion, Putter, who'd never truly enjoyed hurting anyone that hadn't been asking for it, had discovered within himself a kind of buoyancy that lifted the heart and put a spring in his step. Before long, he'd admitted to Clause that what he wanted, what he truly wanted more than anything (except, of course, for money), was to go home. To return to the hills and slopes and wide open plains beneath the rising mountainous peaks of The High Reaches. To Valarian Fields, just west of Minrathous, where his mother and his sisters and his cousins still lived. He wished to hug his sisters and apologize to his mother for being such a shit. To spit in his father's ashes and get belligerently drunk. To fight his cousins in good ole' hand to hand fisticuffs and to pass out inside of a pretty girl with four rosy cheeks, all of them bare to the open sky.

Clause, unwavering in his friendship, had led Putter home, unwilling to listen to his fears of an angry mother and unforgiving sisters and tales of cousins with disturbingly well-sharpened pitchforks. And on that thirty-first of Haring, the last day of the forty-first year of Dragon, they had arrived. Putter's mother, overjoyed with the return of her only son, had not been angry, and had cried as he apologized. His sisters readily forgave and hugged him with such ferocity that Clause had wondered if they might've been trying to squeeze the breath from him. His father's cheap, copper urn showed the signs of neglect that can only come from a life spent as a bastard of a man, and when Putter spit vigorously into the remains, Clause had the distinct impression that he hadn't been the first to do so. The end-year festival had already begun and before long Putter was merrily drunk and had both pummeled and been pummeled senseless by his many cousins, all of whom were quick to offer both drink and bawdy tale to the minstrel.

And now, under the stars on a beautiful, windswept series of hills and valleys, Putter was home and happy, drunk and high, and if Clause were awake he would know from the look on Putter's face that this was not only best day of the year, but the best day of his life. Clause also would've kicked the dog with the surprisingly large bladder pissing on his boots.

As with all good things, though, there comes an end. This end was not quite what Putter had been anticipating as he rolled the farm girl onto her back, removed that last of her clothing and stared hungrily at her naked, wanting body. This end was abrupt and cold, red and terrifying.

First came the wind and the rain. It was the beginning of winter, so there was always a delightful kind of brisk air to the mornings and nights, but given their position between the mountains and the sea beyond Minrathous, Valarian Fields had never known a cold front during this time of year, and certainly not the bitter chill that suddenly swept in from the east. What was truly odd was the rain that came with it. It was warm, the fatter droplets seemingly almost burning hot.

The naked girl flinched beneath him as the wind and rain hit her all at once and he noticed several wet, red flecks on her breasts and face. Drunk and worried, he lazily swiped a finger along her cheek, the red coming away on his flesh. The farm girl reached up and ran her palm along his bare chest in much the same manner. At first he thought she'd misinterpreted his touch as more intimate, until he spotted the look of confusion on her face. He looked down at his chest. He was covered in the same droplets of red. Had someone nearby tossed a half-full cup of wine? He brought his finger to his lips.

He tasted blood. Nearby, a girl screamed. Then another, farther off in the distance.

Something snapped in Putter's mind and he came out of his drunken haze. He stumbled from the girl, finding his balance and rising to his feet. Putter spotted her skirt and picked it up off the ground, throwing it at her. "We're under attack," he said, wincing as he stuffed his erection back into his pants, forcing it to rest alongside his thigh as he quickly retied the leather bands at his crotch.

The farm girl got up, fear in her eyes. "What do I do?"

"Run home! Warn anyone you can and get to safety."

She watched him a moment longer, hesitant. Putter grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Go!"

Nodding, she turned as a second gust of cold wind hit them, her grip on her skirt seemingly a reflex as she ran naked through the stalks and reeds into the dark of night.

Putter shivered in the cold. "Clause?" He called out. There was no response beyond the random screams of the other revelers and the growing howl of the wind.

The rain, hot and slick, picked up in its intensity as Putter scanned the dark valley around him for any sign of threat. There were shouts of confusion, farmers calling out to each other and the intermittent sounds of grass and reeds being trampled beneath feet. No grunts of attack, no whistle of arrows. That's when Putter began to notice how wrong the rain felt. It was thick and sticky… and it smelled of metal.

Putter looked down at himself once more. He was now covered in wet red fluid, as if he'd bathed in blood. He ran his fingers across his flat stomach as the rain continued to pelt him. The red rain that tasted of...

They weren't under attack. It was raining blood.

"Putter!" The voice came from his left. He turned, fist raised fearfully as Clause danced out from the shadows, equally bloody. "The fuck is going on?"

Putter opened his mouth to respond. Before he could, the sky opened up above Minrathous, several leagues to the east. A red light shown upon the city. The two men turned their glances towards it and the bellowing howl that came from the sky sounded like the death rattle of the Maker himself.

Both men knew what this was. It wasn't hard to recognize the end of the world.

* * *

**ARTHUR'S NOTE***

Just to be clear on this, Paul Simon wrote 'A Hazy Shade of Winter', and it was originally performed by Simon and Garfunkel. I note that the lyrics quoted in the intro are to 'The Bangles' because of one simple reason. They changed the lyrics.

More distinctly, they changed the lyrics and, therefore, the meaning of the song, and it is this meaning which I wanted to link to the opening of the story.

The change noted here is in the line, 'Carry a gun in your hand,' which was originally, 'Carry a _cup_ in your hand.' Paul Simon, in the original, was remarking on the changing of seasons, the passing of time and the melancholy that comes with this. On the other hand, The Bangles version can far more aptly be construed as apocalyptic or even post-apocalyptic, losing a lot of Paul's emotional depth, the 'springtime of life,' but adding a level of gravity to the literal loss of seasons and time, rather than a figurative one.

Their version is, in fact, one of my favorite 'end of the world' songs, especially the almost violent build-up in the last forty-five seconds. It can be sensed/interpreted that something massive is coming, like the mighty fist of an angry god ready to strike, and just before it does, the song ends abruptly, leaving the listener in suspense, were they to be taken in by such a notion.

Still, had the lyrics remained the same, only the tone changed, I would've attributed the song to its original creator, Paul Simon, no matter how I felt about the tonal change from folk rock to, well, 'rock' rock.

Just saying. Paul Simon is awesome. Respect.

Finally, special thanks to my Beta Reader, Skeasel.


	2. Chapter 1: Bianca Has an Itch

PART I

While I may be alone, in truth my plans keep me company,  
A great adventure's gonna come my way.

Without a Face - "Flux Capacitor"

I would like to reach out my hand,  
I may see you, I may tell you to run,  
You know what they say about the young.  
Send me on my way.

Rusted Roots - "Send Me On My Way"

CHAPTER 1

Bianca Has An Itch

9:41 Dragon  
20th Firstfall

The Free Marches  
Kirkwall

41 Days Earlier

"Xebenkeck. Monstrous… eternal… lusting, hungering evermore for the blood of the innocent. Once a man, you say? Perhaps, but for certain a man no longer. A beast without parallel, hiding beneath a veneer of alluring beauty, a thing of mottled grey flesh and plated armor, seemingly fused together at the bone. An evil undying that stalked these very streets in the dead of night, plucking the young from their beds and stripping skin from bone like so much wet parchment from the underside of a boot, all to get at their tender mortal hearts-"

"Oy! Dwarf!" The burly guard in the center of the bar, two tables over, turned in his chair, a disgruntled look on his face. "I'm trying to have a drink here, do you mind?"

Varric sighed and leaned back in his chair. Across from him, the light in the blue eyes of the petite blonde girl died just as fast as it had come, the narrative spell he'd been casting broken. It was so much easier to tell a good horror story at night, by the firelight in his quarters. Unfortunately, he no longer _had_ quarters here, not since he'd returned from Starkhaven. Now he had to make do with the common tables by the bar. When you tell a scary story with daylight streaming through the cracks in the wood paneling and the holes in the roof above, it becomes infinitely harder to maintain control. Especially when noisy, obnoxious guardsmen were about.

"Well, thanks anyway," the girl said, giving a shy smile and standing up off the bench, leaving three bits in her wake.

Varric chuckled, waving his hand. "Wait, wait, wait, you don't have to leave just yet. I've got a million different tales, any kind you like. Just sit down, have another drink."

The girl shook her head, wincing, "Mmm, no thanks. I've got… you know, stuff."

A moment of thick, nearly tangible awkwardness passed between them. There was no 'stuff' to which she needed to attend and they both knew it. She simply wished to be elsewhere but didn't want to leave without his approval. So Varric gave her a big grin. He nodded, taking a gulp of ale from his mug. "Sure, of course. Of course. Off with you now; life, as they say, is…"

She'd already gone; apparently having fled as soon as he'd nodded and lifted the ale.

Varric glanced between the slim shaft of daylight spilling in from The Hanged Man's door as it closed behind her and the near-empty mug he held. "…fleeting."

The guard who'd interrupted his story chuckled. Varric glared at him.

"Something funny, friend?"

The guard nodded vigorously. "Yeah, something's funny, alright. You, old man." He laughed even louder, taking a long drink from his mug.

Varric stood from the bench, gracefully taking Bianca from her seated position next to him and fitting her snugly into the leather-strapped holster along the back of his coat in one smooth, fluid motion.

The burly guard stopped drinking and his smile disappeared as he caught sight of the crossbow, some of his ale spilling out the corners of his mouth and into the thick black tangle of his beard.

Varric walked to the guard's table and sat down across from him. "So why don't you tell me what's so funny about me." It wasn't a question, and the guard noted this. He set his mug down, eyeing Varric.

After a moment of sizing the dwarf up, half of a nervous, twitching grin returned. "What's my name, dwarf?"

Varric frowned. "Beg pardon?"

"My name… fuck it- you recognize me at all? You seen me around before?"

His frown deepened, first with confusion, then in actually trying to place the man's face.

"Yeah," the guard said, " 'at's what I thought. You don't recognize me. It's alright. I know you. Used to be, that didn't mean nothin', right? Who didn't know you? You was Varric Tethras, the right-hand man of the Champion of Kirkwall. You was a writer, too. 'Victory Lane,' 'Qunari Vengeance', 'Hard in Hightown'." The guard took another drink, wiping his mouth, nodding. "Yeah, had me those serials. Read 'em most nights. I was a boy, mind you, thirteen, fourteen, piss and vinegar. Came in here even, more nights then one, snuck in to catch a glimpse of that Champion of yours. Never caught you but once. Took ole' Norah fifteen minutes that night to realize I was too young and toss me out the door, but that's the night I saw ya'. All of ya'.

"This must've been, what, five- no, six years back. I'd covered me'self in a cloak, right, cause I was the right height, now, fourteen years of age and all of about five-eleven, but I didn't have the beard to pull it off, 'at's how Norah kept spottin' me. So I had this cloak, wasn't even a man's cloak, was my mum's," he waved his hands around his head, grinning ear-to-ear, and Varric found himself smiling back, "coverin' the face, and I snuck in with a mess of guards comin' off duty, like me now, only they was comin' off the day shift, and it was right dark outside. And I snuck in, kept to the shadows, walked around the bar and sat in the dingiest corner next to a couple of Lowtown's finest, two drunken idgits covered in filth, they was.

"But I didn't care. Not one bit, cause there you was. There _she_ was, dark hair cut short, lookin' all of ten feet tall standing with the pirate lady. Maker, those were some tits, eh? No disrespect, old man, she was built like a brick shithouse, breasts out to here and ass comin' out the back of that tunic-bottom or whatever. The two of them were laughing and drinking, the hilts of their blades coming out over each shoulder. I thought, the way they looked, you know, the easy way 'tween 'em they had, I thought they was together. Then the elf got up from the table next to ya', she had her hair sort of like the Champion's, you know, real short. Only she didn't have no tits, or not as apparent, anyhow, an' I thought she was a boy at first, 'til I saw her face.

"Now that there was a pixie, like she'd come boundin' right outta the forest and into the tavern. You know what I thought, second she turned and I saw her face and them ears? You had a serial, round thirty-three, thirty-four, what was it? It was the one 'bout the magical forest and the little elven girl going up against that ancient evil, the thing with the body of a man and the head of a boar-"

"Night of the Griffon," Varric said cheerfully, passing a few copper bits to Miri the waitress as she refilled his tankard.

The guard snapped his fingers. "That was it! 'Night of the Griffon', yeah. Daisy, the elf, she had to save the griffon from that boar-thing and cleanse the forest of evil or some such. Liked that one well enough. Anyhow, that's what I thought of when I saw her. Well, the pirate lady, she looks at the Champion, and she looks at the pixie, says something and runs her hand along the pixie's cheek, all nice and adoring-like, and the elf-girl blushes crimson and folds into the Champion's side like the two of 'em was suddenly melded from the same metal and found their way home. The Champion puts her arm around her and she and the pirate lady burst out laughin' at the girl, who hides her face in the Champ's shoulder.

"So I'm in awe at this point, right? Star-struck, I guess. Some people, they just got that vibe about 'em. Heroes. Like, larger than life. The stuff of legends. And here they was, not twelve paces from where I was sittin'. The Champion, the pirate, even the pixie had a way about her, a confidence, I suppose. Like she could stare into the eye of the blight and not blink. And there, next to 'em, sittin' at the table, there was more. There was Guard-Captain Aveline, lookin' kinda out of place, you know, I'm probably biased on this, her being my boss and all, and another elf, with tanned skin and white tattoos all over his body and white hair, looking for all the world like one big muscle of pain. There's a mabari- a mabari hound right from Ferelden at the foot of the table, chewing on a steak the size of which I'd never even had.

"And then, and this is how I know for sure the year was thirty-six, there was the mage with the blond hair, Anderson-"

Varric grimaced. "Anders."

"Right, like I said, Anderson. Him, I'll never forget. It was less than a year from that point that he'd blow up the Chantry and kill all them people, and here he is, looking like a string on a harp strung way too tight, and all you folks oblivious to it." He held up a hand at Varric's reaction. "Not so as I'd blame ya', mind you, from what I hear, the man was a healer for years. Why not trust him, eh? That ain't what this is about. This is about the man next to him, right? What you asked about in the first place. Varric Tethras. Sittin' at the side of the Champion herself, buyin' rounds for the bar and laughin' louder and livelier than any other man in the room. If there was a beatin' heart to the group, it was you, dwarf. People say sometimes that it was the Champion kept all them livin' legends in the same spot, the same group. I say, bullshit to that, friend, it wasn't no Champion could corral so much power to one spot and keep it strong for nearly eight years. She had too much ambition and energy, the whole thing would've imploded after too long. Heard you even had the fuckin' prince of Starkhaven runnin' with that crowd. No way the Champion kept 'em all together all those years.

"I tell 'em," the guard struck the table with each following word, "it was Varric, fucking, Tethras."

There was a moment of silence between them. Varric watched the guard and shifted in his seat. He took a drink from his mug. The guard followed suit.

He cleared his throat. "So that's about the time the room got quiet. I don't remember how it happened, I don't know if there's ever really a reason for it; maybe somebody shouted, 'Oy, dwarf, tell us a story, why don't ya'?!' But I don't think so. I think sometimes, when the mood is right and everybody's ready, it's like a bit of serendipity or something creeps into a place and settles on it, and everybody just knows something's about to happen. So the room gets quiet and all of 'em, all the patrons, the Champion and her pixie, the pirate and Captain Aveline, even the fuckin' mabari, all eyes are on you. The flames from the lanterns are lickin' the air behind you and you look out at the crowd and begin like this…"

The guard was leaning in over the table, his hands out before him as though he were literally about to weave a tale from thin air. Varric realized that he too was leaning forward, hanging on the next word.

The guard took on a brackish, rasping voice, a passable impression of Varric as he began, "Xebenkeck. Monstrous… eternal… lusting, hungering evermore for the blood of the innocent. Once a man, you say? Perhaps." The guard stopped then, burst out laughing and leaning back, clapping his hands.

Varric chuffed and rolled his eyes. "That's it? That's why I'm funny? Every storyteller tells a tale more than once, that's the-"

"No-no," the guard said, waving his hand, still laughing, "you don't get it?! I don't believe it!"

"What are you getting at?"

The guard stared at him, his young eyes wide in disbelief. "It's been _six years_! I was a boy of fourteen; I'm twenty now, a man grown, looking at the shadow of a giant I never knew! The Battle of Kirkwall ended and you all took off for parts unknown while the rest of us rebuilt. Guard-Captain Aveline came back within the year and took up her old post, but everybody saw that coming. She couldn't live without this place. But _you_, you who kept all that power in one place for nearly a decade with a mighty dwarven fist, you returned to… to what? I don't know how long a dwarf lives, maybe you got another hundred years or some such in ya', but to what inglorious end? There's nothing here for you, and all you do is sit in a half-empty bar, at the best of times, mind you, offering the same old stories to anyone who'll listen. _That_ is why it's funny, old man."

Varric, stunned, sat in silence. The guard got up, reached into a pocket and pulled out three silvers, tossing them to Miri as she passed. "Another round for the dwarf, Miri." He grabbed his shield as he moved to leave and glanced down at Varric, who was still staring straight ahead. "There's a line from 'Hard in Hightown,' volume three, always comes to mind when I see you now, y'know? Donnen's with a lieutenant at the climax in the market and he starts to chuckle, and Vic, the lieutenant, says, 'Donnen, all these men are gonna die in this siege, why you laughin'?' And Donnen looks at him and says-"

"It's a tragedy, Vic," Varric finished for him, "if you don't laugh, you're gonna have to cry."

The guard stared down at him. "Just so," he said.

A few seconds later Varric heard the door to the Hanged Man swing shut behind him.

It was at this point that Varric realized he was the only patron left in the Hanged Man.

* * *

"Varric, no!" Aveline growled between gritted teeth, placing a plate down in front of him.

"Hey, listen, it's not like I'm asking to take jobs away from your people, you know!" Varric explained as he picked up the sandwich she'd set in front of him. "Just let me tag along on a few patrols, show the boys how it's done."

Aveline grabbed a bottle of brandy from a shelf and settled into the chair behind her desk, taking two glasses out from a drawer. "Do you think me such a lousy guard-captain that I'd need to send the likes of you out with my men for _training_, of all things?"

"Oh, so Udina was good training material, a damnable mabari, but I'm not?" Varric replied in indignation, amidst the first bite of the sandwich, then quickly added, "mm, what is this, hare?"

"It's venison," she said, pouring the brandy.

"It's so tender… marvelous."

"Isn't it? When Donnic said he wanted that hunting lodge in Wildervale twice a year I called him a fool… now twice a year I get to enjoy eating my words."

"And venison."

"That too," she said, passing him a glass. "And Udina never passed out drunk on a job, for what it's worth."

Varric nearly made a show of spit-taking the brandy in his mouth, but from the look on the auburn-haired guard-captain's face he reconsidered, swallowing and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Madam Vallen, I am beyond shocked, the word 'appalled' fails to define the state you've put me in, I have never-"

"Save it for someone who hasn't spent ten years in your company, dwarf," Aveline said, waving her hand dismissively, sipping her brandy, "your bullshit flies in far fairer skies when you're the one telling the story. I distinctly recall you and Hawke going round for round one night in the Hanged Man, determined to see the other fall first, and when neither of you did and that idiot nobleman flung himself into the bar screaming about bandits-"

"Whoa, whoa, Aveline, you've got this all wrong; I mean, apart from all of that being true, Hawke and I did not pass out during that fight with the Ostwick bandits-"

"I never said _Hawke_ passed out. When we got to the site of the attack, _Hawke_ immediately announced our presence, drew out the bandit leader and his girlfriend with insults so vile I'd put a guard in the stocks for repeating them, put a dagger between the leader's legs and broke his girlfriend's nose and then knocked herself unconscious attempting to combat roll underneath an ox. _You_, on the other hand, used the resulting chaos to crawl into the nearest overturned caravan and pass out."

"You, my good woman, need to learn the difference between a drunken dwarf passing out, which is a virtual impossibility, and a drunken dwarf simply knowing when the battle is already won and taking a victory nap."

"Ah," Aveline said, taking another sip of brandy, "and do all drunken dwarven victory naps take place mere inches from the spot where they've recently vomited?"

"Only if the victory was truly a glorious one."

"Well, if you'd asked those of us who were still conscious, I'm sure Fenris and Isabela would've told you that it was. That being said, the mabari never victory-vomited or napped."

"Which made him perfect training material, I take it."

Aveline smiled, lifting her glass to him. "As you say."

Varric nodded, his lunch no more than a smattering of crumbs on the silver plate and the brandy in the glass down to a third of what it had been. He stared into the glass, his eyes losing focus.

Aveline frowned. "Varric? What is it? There's more to this than you wanting to join my men on patrols."

The dwarf was quiet a moment longer, tracing the carvings in the glass with one thumb. Eventually, in a hushed, tired voice, he said, "Bianca has an itch."

Aveline laughed. "What?"

Varric came back to himself then, his gaze finding focus, his eyes opening wider; he looked at Aveline. He took a deep breath and gave her a weak smile. "I'm getting old, and Bianca has an itch."

Aveline growled. She took an inkwell from the desktop and chucked it at him.

Varric caught it before it struck him in the face. "Hey, what?!"

"We're the same age, you cretin! And I'll be damned if thirty-six is the year I start referring to myself as 'getting old'."

"Well, we were always the eldest-"

"Next to whom, Varric? Anders, Hawke? I met Marian when she was barely past twenty, the twins all of seventeen or eighteen, and Anders was only a sight older than her. Isabela was just a few years shy of us and Merrill, well… Merrill was a child to the end of it."

Varric shot her a strange glance at that comment, and Aveline sensed that she'd struck a nerve. She rolled her eyes. "All I'm saying is that we were all young, all violent and brash and eager to prove ourselves. And we spent longer than most doing so, and were far more successful at it as well. But that bit's over now. The traveling and adventuring days are behind us, as they should be, and that doesn't make us old, we're simply moving on. What violence remains in Kirkwall as I keep my post here is more than enough to satiate my bloodlust, thank you very much, and you should feel the same."

She offered him the bottle of brandy, and he nodded, leaning forward with his glass outstretched. As she refilled it, Aveline said, "you know, as a writer, I'm surprised you're having such a difficult time finishing one chapter and beginning the next."

Varric settled back into his chair, eyeing her thoughtfully. "But Bianca…"

Aveline glared at him. "-can get her itch scratched at the hunting lodge in Wildervale. We still have it paid for through the next fortnight. I'll have Donnic give you the directions."

"I don't know if I'm the deer-hunting type, milady," Varric said, making a face.

"There's not just deer in that forest, and don't call me that. There's wild boar and wolves and bears-"

"Oh my," Varric said dryly.

"And who knows," Aveline smiled, drinking the last of the brandy from her glass, "you may run into some bandits along the way, perhaps a wild sylvan. Come back with a fresh story or two to write."

* * *

When everything for the trip to the lodge was packed, Donnic smiled and clapped Varric on the shoulder. "Now," he said, "I'll bet you're feeling better already, eh, serah?"

They stood in the foyer of Varric's Hightown manse, a home which he'd never felt quite comfortable living in (or even truly calling 'home') and yet an inevitability when Aveline had informed Eric Guillory, the new Viscount, that Varric had returned to Kirkwall and was attempting to once again retain his spot in the Hanged Man. Guillory would have none of it for a hero of the city and had instead retained this garishly outfitted miniature mansion just off the markets, insisting the dwarf keep himself safe rather than squat in some Lowtown hovel. It was an offer he couldn't refuse, as Aveline and Donnic had been so kind as to remind him from time to time. This usually occurred whenever a guardsman spotted him spending an 'unhealthy' amount of time in the southern edge of Kirkwall, where many of the buildings still remained without renters after the Chantry's destruction.

Varric's gaze roamed over the foyer and the adjoining living rooms, from the luxurious sofas he never sat in, the ornately carved desk he'd rarely used for writing (what little of that he still did, as the words had been so much harder to find these last three years), and the flowing silk tapestries bearing the Tethras family insignia. The insignia, a symbol of ill-gotten wealth and unearned pride he'd spent a lifetime attempting to distance himself from, now a black spot hanging from the walls of his residence. About the only things he could see that he'd ever gotten any real use out of were the hearth and the liquor tray.

"Not just yet," he told Aveline's husband truthfully.

Donnic chuckled. "Give it a bit more time. Get out on that open road, smell that fresh, Vimmark mountain air and watch the world change from golden brown to deep green as everything becomes wooded and leafy." He took a deep breath, grinning. "It puts a man right, it does."

"'Leafy', huh?"

"Indeed, serah. I wish I'd known you'd been in this way a week passed. I could've taken you with me on my own sojourn at the lodge. Bronoski is good company, don't get me wrong, but he's always so loud. It frightens the fawns away. And you, well… you clearly need some time away from all this."

Varric frowned. "Maybe I do."

"Of course you do!" Donnic took him by the shoulders. "Maker bless my good wife, serah, but she's a woman all the same. She doesn't understand, couldn't understand a man's need for the hunt. To catch the beast out there is to tame the beast within. Just you wait and see. Your pen will be flowing freely again in no time, and the printing presses***** will be all the better for it, I can tell you."

Varric grimaced. "Ah… so Aveline told you about the writer's block."

Donnic gave him a quizzical look. "Why would she need to? I'm quite capable of reading myself, you know. Unless, of course, there's naught to read."

"Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest-"

Donnic waved his hand. "Think nothing of it. Just enjoy the hunt. Tame the beast. See if you don't feel better." He took his shield and scabbard from where they rested on a nearby ottoman and stepped to the doorway. "I once read somewhere that the greatest journeys begin with a single step forward, and that the only harm one can surely come to is by not taking that step, no matter what the destination."

He opened the door to the cloudless, starry night and, with a last smile and a respectful bow, withdrew into the street, headed for home where his wife awaited, no doubt with a meal made of some furry woodland creature Donnic had carted back from Wildervale. He left the door standing open, the intent of the action clear to Varric. _Muster yourself and get going, dwarf_.

"I really wish people would stop quoting my work to me," Varric grumbled. "Was I always so trite?"

He took his time darkening the manse, blowing out the candles and killing the flame in the hearth, and doing this only after giving Bianca one last loving bath with oils and a scrub brush. He polished the metal, scrubbed the wood and reapplied the sealant, restringing her and checking each bolt in his quiver for defects, dents and scrapes.

After the passing of an hour, the manse was black and hollow and silent, the curtains drawn and the hearth down to half a dozen dull, red embers. As Varric sat nearby with his two canvas travel-satchels next to him, watching the last of the embers burn out, Aveline's words came back to him in the dark.

'Merrill, well… Merrill was a child to the end of it.'

He couldn't stop his mind from reaching back to the bright, sunny day in Tantervale where everything changed. That blighted last job they never should've taken. _He_ never should've taken. He remembered the screams. The blood and the fire. The look of horror on Merrill's face as she ran towards that tiny, frail body-

Someone stepped into the room behind him, yanking him out of the desperate memory. They were the soft footsteps of someone unmistakably attempting to be stealthy and doing a subpar job of it.

"You picked the wrong place to get lost, friend," Varric growled, reaching into one of his satchels and pulling out a small flame grenade, twisting around and tossing the explosive to the marble floor behind him.

The clay jar shattered and liquid fire roared to life, blasting away the darkness in a fiery show of red and orange flames, illuminating the living room, the furniture and the hooded figure before him, casting ten foot shadows on the walls of the manse.

The man in the hood and robes reacted quickly, his pale hands reaching out to the flames licking at his legs. Ice burst from his fingertips, snuffing out the fire around him.

Varric rolled to his left, snatching Bianca as he went, locking back the first bolt and coming to rest on one knee with the repeating crossbow aimed directly at the man's heart.

"Wait!" The man shouted, every candle in the room bursting to life.

Varric blinked away the sudden brightness, his aim never faltering.

"Maker, dwarf! Just wait a second!" The man said. He reached up his hands to pull back his hood, but it wasn't necessary. Varric would know that voice to his dying day. The strength and the vulnerability immediately laid bare by it, the sympathy it evoked. The death it had wrought. Varric lowered his aim slightly.

Anders stood not three lengths from him, a wary smile on his face, russet-golden bangs falling over his deep-set eyes. He held out one hand as if to stay the coming barrage. He was breathing heavily.

"That's a fine 'hello', friend!" He said, laughing nervously.

"Hello," Varric said, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

**ARTHUR'S NOTE***

I love Wikipedia. It isn't the mishmash of sixty percent pure bullshit, thirty percent slanted truth, seven percent crazy and three percent reliability it started out as. If a motherfucker needs to confirm that the printing presses existed ages ago, he can now use Wiki to do so, and feel adequately comfortable that the information he's using it to confirm is legit. This motherfucker is, time and again, overjoyed when he fact-checks the info he's using from Wiki only to find that the action was unnecessary. It even makes Jimmy Wales' annoying, goddamned, kicked puppy-dog face on the "Donate Money" banners tolerable when they pop up every four to six months. And it makes me glad that I've donated so much money over the years _because_ of that annoying, goddamned, kicked puppy-dog face.

As always, thanks to my Beta Reader Skeasel for the thankless job of editing, polishing, finger-wagging and "STFU, end the damn sentence already!"-ing.


	3. Chapter 2: He's My Very Best Friend

I got a heart full of trouble, a house full of sin.  
And things are bad as they ever been.  
If trouble were money,  
I'd have more money than any man should.

Etta James- "The Blues Is My Business"

CHAPTER 2

He's My Very Best Friend

9:41 Dragon  
21th Firstfall

The Free Marches  
Kirkwall

40 Days

Anders stood stock still for a moment, mouth agape, blood draining from his face.

He shocked gaze slowly fell from Varric down to where his left hand was now connected to the wall that separated the foyer from the living room. A single silver bolt had passed cleanly through his palm and implanted itself into the stone beyond.

"You-you…" He tried to get the words out, looking at his hand in horror. "You shot me!"

Varric rose from his knee, keeping Bianca trained on the mage. "Yeah, it was a long t-"

"You shot me!"

Varric began to slowly sidestep across the living room. "It was a long time com-"

"You dick!" Anders lashed out with his right hand. A bolt of lightning arced past Varric's face, singeing the small hairs on his neck.

The dwarf, surprised, reared back and accidentally pulled the trigger again. The tense strings collapsed on the second bolt and it shot out, piercing Anders in the meat of his right shoulder. He howled, "Agh, blessed, sweet mother of tits and knickers, you bloody dwarf!"

"Shit, that one wasn't on purpose," Varric said over the _whir-thunk_ of his repeater reloading, "that was an accident, I'm sorry, you took me by surprise-"

Barely able to raise his right hand, Anders grimaced and pointed his fingers at Varric once again. "You're a dick!"

Varric eyed the fingers warily. He shook his head. "Anders, don't! Wait… time out!"

"Oh, time out. Now that I'm a pincushion, you want a time out," Anders snarled.

Varric continued, his aim wavering, "Don't do that. Just stop- STOP wiggling your fingers! We'll talk!"

"Talk?! I'm stapled to a wall, you shit! This-this is _incredibly_ painful!" His voice was reaching an octave Varric had never heard. Anders sniffed.

Varric suddenly lowered the crossbow, staring at the mage. "Anders, are… are you crying?"

Anders shot him a withering, though admittedly teary-eyed glare. The air crackled around his fingers for a split-second before-

This time, the lightning found its mark. Varric was blown off his feet, his fingers and toes clenching. He crashed into the large, mahogany bookshelf behind him, the shelves splintering, cracking and bursting from the sudden pressure. He fell to the floor amidst over two-dozen heavy, leather-bound volumes that had been double-stacked.

Dazed and bloodied, with a cut on his forehead and a thin trail leaking from one of his nostrils, Varric tried to shake some sense back into his head. He felt Bianca, still in his hand, firm and unbroken.

The first thing he heard was Anders hyperventilating.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," he said as if it were a chant, repeating it with every breath.

Varric squinted at him across the room.

Anders was staring down between his legs. There was a bolt embedded in the groin region of his robes. Apparently Varric had shot off one more accidental bolt when he'd been hit.

"Okay, okay, time out. Time out!" Anders panicked.

Varric shakily got to his feet, side-stepping books and brushing loose pages from his shoulders. He stumbled to where Anders was bolted to the wall, laying Bianca on a table as he went. He eyed the last bolt fearfully, then glanced up at Anders. "Is it…?"

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, check, check."

"Wait, what do you mean you don't know?! Is it… you know, is it in there or not?!"

Anders made a face, taking several deep breaths before speaking again. "The lightning spell, it… numbs the body for a few minutes after a powerful surge."

Varric bristled. "You hit me with a powerful surge?"

"You shot me!" Anders responded through his teeth.

"And what do you mean by, 'check'?"

"Like I said, I can't tell if it hit or not, please, for the love of Andraste, just check to make sure it's alright!"

"Blon-", he shook his head, "Anders, I'm not looking at your-"

"Please, it's my favorite part of me, been together through the best and the worst of it, we have. He's taken me to some very nice places; comfy, snug, happy, velvety places, please, I know every man says it, but really, Varric… he's my very best friend." He stared at the dwarf with big, pleading eyes.

Varric sighed, bunching up the thick, silk and polymythril-mesh robe in his hands and peeked beneath with one raised brow for a split second. He quickly dropped the robe.

Anders squinted. "How bad is it? Is he… he's-"

Varric grabbed the bolt between Anders' legs and gave it a solid tug. It popped out from the wall. "You're fine. Both of you."

"Oh Maker," Anders said, laughing, "thank you, thank you, bless your-"

Varric reached out to the other two bolts in Anders and yanked simultaneously, freeing them from the wall, and with a bit of shredding, from the mage as well.

Anders' eyes bugged out and he collapsed to the floor. "Fucking balls!"

Varric chuckled, turning and wobbling back to the table Bianca sat at. He shakily sat down next to her, still feeling the effects of the lightning bolt. "Well," he said, "it's not every day the Maker has his balls blessed, I'm sure he's pleased. You want to tell me what you're doing here?"

Anders grimaced at him, holding one trembling hand over the other. A dull blue light began to shine from his palms as he healed the flesh. "You want to," he took another deep breath, "would you mind telling me why you shot me first?"

Varric slid open a side compartment in Bianca's stock and pulled out a small, square, silk cloth. He began to clean the blood and debris from the bolts he'd retrieved. "Are you really asking me that?"

"Yes."

Varric eyed him with disbelief. "Like I was trying to say before, it was a long time coming. Orsino went crazy and we killed him, then we killed Meredith. Then when we took off and reached the city limits, you ran away and-"

"I didn't-, that's not fair."

"You ran away, Anders."

"Marian said if she ever saw me again she'd-"

"Oh, piss on that, human. Hawke was angry, she was belligerent, sure, but if she'd really planned on killing you she would've done it when you obliterated the chantry and every living soul inside of it, and you know that! Sebastian made it very clear that it was your life or Hawke's honor, and she chose your life. You weren't running away from Hawke, you were running away from what you'd done. You could've taken the fight you had coming and you chose not to. I never got to tell you how much you'd screwed us over. And that was my telling you. Well, it was mostly Bianca, but I'm happy to say I helped."

His left hand healed, Anders tentatively placed it on his right shoulder, hissing at the pain from contact with the wound. "I just thought you'd be able to see my side of it, Varric."

Varric nearly shot him again. He sneered, baring his teeth, making a fist around the bolt he was cleaning. "You don't get it! You… you just don't listen, do you? Hawke was right; you never did. So busy being oppressed, being the martyr for all mage-kind that you- you didn't see what you had, what the rest of us, all of us could've…" He closed his eyes and wiped the blood from his nose, sniffing. "Forget it. You stopped having a side worth seeing when you did what you did. You've made it very clear that you don't give a damn about your friends, and that's why I shot you. Just tell me what you want and be on your way."

Anders was quiet for a while. The only sounds were the scrubbing of cloth on steel and the hum of healing magic. Anders laughed a little.

"What?" Varric asked.

"I came here…" Another giggle escaped Anders, "I came because…" And another, as if forcing its way past his lips. He cleared his throat and straightened his face, attempting to stop. He failed, though, and soon Anders fell into a steady stream of laughter.

"What's the matter with you?"

Anders shrugged, smiling sheepishly and giggling still. "I, I don't know. I came because I'm worried about our friends."

Varric stared at him a moment, then laughed as well. The two of them found they could not stop.

* * *

Once they'd calmed down and the hearth was relit, they sat together near a long, oak table, upon which Anders presently placed a large, oddly-shaped, black stone.

"What is it?" Varric asked.

"It's called a portent stone."

Varric's brow arced. "And its purpose is self-explanatory?"

"To the best of our knowledge, yes."

"Who is 'our'? You mean you and Justice?"

"No, he… he's gone."

The fire in the hearth crackled as a gust of wind fluttered in from somewhere and the small flames of the candles around them flickered, belying their fragile lives as several danced and went out. The dwarf stared at Anders for a while, searching his eyes.

"When?"

"That night. I knew it was over as I watched the Chantry crumble. Like… I don't know, like waking from a nightmare, I guess." He sniffed, glancing around the room. "I shouldn't say that about him. Like waking from a dream, more like. A dark dream, with… little bright spots; brilliant, crystalline bits of violence and clarity."

"How did it happen?"

He shrugged. "How am I to know? I never truly could grasp the nature of our being in the first place. I had blackouts, did I ever tell you that?"

Varric shook his head.

"Yeah. Before that night. Months before. They got worse as things progressed, as he got angrier. For the longest time, I blamed him for what I did and I thought that was what had killed him. But then I realized it was what I wanted in the first place."

"You wanted people to die?"

"I wanted people to _know_. To change. I just wasn't strong enough to change them, not on my own. I think the power of helping me, of carrying me that last bit, I think it drained him. I think it killed him at the end. …but what do I know, maybe he'd simply gotten what we wanted and ceased to exist. It's a nice thought, but I doubt it all the same."

Varric frowned, looking at the stone. "So, if you didn't mean you and Justice, then I have to ask again; who is 'us'?"

Anders eyed the dwarf warily, his glance shooting to Bianca for a second. "Er…"

Varric sighed. "Great. More mages. You've allied yourself with-"

"Well _of course_ I did, Varric!" Anders said loudly, standing and throwing his hands up. He began to pace before the table. "…What was I supposed to do, throw myself before the mercy of the Circle? The Templars or the Chantry? Or perhaps go into exile, hmm? Find some forgotten nook or cranny, one of the Alamarian isles-"

"A little bit of self-reflection might've been nice," Varric began in retort.

"Don't think for a second that just because I didn't vanish from Thedas that a moment's gone by where I've forgotten the price freedom cost." Anders cut him off, pointing a finger at him.

Varric chuckled. "Is that what you did? Bought your freedom-"

"Let's not get into this again."

"Why don't you go back outside and introduce yourself to one of the night guardsmen on patrol, see what freedom feels like?"

"Enough!" Anders said, rubbing his cheeks. "I didn't come here to argue."

"No…" Varric agreed. He gestured to the stone. "You came because of that."

"Yes. It, we're still not sure of how it does what it does, exactly."

"What do you mean?"

Anders sat back down, staring at the stone. "Once the chantry and the Templars lost their grip on the Circles, we began forming groups. I… with a number of the contacts I had left from my days in Kirkwall-"

"The ones who _didn't_ become abominations. The ones we didn't kill."

Anders gave him a look. "Yes."

"Must've been a short list."

"Again, yes. You're very clever, can we move on? We each made our way to Tevinter, met up in a small parish northeast of Solas by the name of Chadlock. It took a while, mages coming in, groups of two or three at a time, each with more news from the Circles; the Chantry had lost power in one place, rogue Templars slaughtering everything remotely magical in another, things like that. Soon, we were large enough as a group to begin working."

"And the citizens of Chadlock?"

Anders smiled. "It's Tevinter, Varric."

"Which I guess means the Imperium was everything you'd hoped it would be."

"And more. Within a few months, we had done more for the community, mages and non-mages alike, then any of the Circle towers outside of the Imperium could've accomplished in a decade."

"Why not just go to one of the actual Tevinter Circles?"

Anders shrugged. "I'm still a wanted man. Many of us are. We didn't- we _don't_ know how the Tevinter authorities would respond to any requests for retribution from the south."

Varric gave him a once-over. "You don't seem to have gone for a lack of food or shelter."

The mage grinned, looking over the manse. "Nor do you. Funny, I never thought you'd go Hightown soft on us, Varric."

"Yeah, well," Varric grumbled. He pointed to the stone. "Why don't you just tell me about this thing?"

"It's from the center of a lyrium vein."

Varric's eyes widened.

Anders nodded. "Chadlock has some mines in the outlying areas that lead down to the Deep Roads. We cleared one of the tunnels out, blocked it off and began mining, studying."

"But the lyrium dust-"

"It was only a problem at the beginning. We hired on a number of surface dwarves to bring out the larger loads. Eventually, we'd built up a steady supply of materials to begin experimenting with. This was one of them," he said, nodding to the stone.

Varric picked the stone up from the table and examined it. It was large, about twice the size of his fist, and almond-shaped, perfectly smooth and flat on one side, with the back side rounded. It looked like a giant, black tear-drop that had been frozen into stone and cut in half. The surface of the flat side was glassy, reflecting his curious expression back at him through the face of the dark stone. "How does it work?"

Anders glanced between Varric and the stone, his expression unreadable beyond a clear, growing excitement. He reached out his hand and touched the tip of the stone with his bloodstained index finger and whispered, "like this."

Magic flowed from his finger into the portent stone, which lit up and began to glow a dull, dark blue.

Despite this, Varric still saw his own face looking back at him, though now clearer in contrast.

"…it's not working," he said.

"Just give it a moment."

And indeed, a moment longer was all it took.

His face vanished as smoke seemed to swirl within the face of the stone and as the smoke cleared, Varric saw the moon shining back over a dark plain covered in patches of snow with woods in the distance. "You gotta be shittin' me," Varric said softly.

Soon a figure appeared at the edge of the forest, a dim shape Varric could barely make out. It was moving quickly, though… his brow furrowed and he leaned closer towards the stone. He needn't have. The figure was running towards him, so to speak, and as it neared the face of the stone it came into greater detail. By the time it had cleared the forest's edge and made its way into the snow-dappled valley, Varric could tell that it was wrapped in a heavy, dark cloak, possibly wool or fur. It was hobbling as though wounded, running with a limp, and it was carrying something very large in its arms.

The figure continued to approach, desperately quickening its pace and Varric could swear he was beginning to hear labored breathing. Then, as he began to make out a pale face-

"Wait," he said, leaning closer still. He felt a hand at his chest, pushing him back.

Anders. The mage shook his head solemnly. "Don't."

Varric looked back into the stone. "It's…"

"Yes."

He was sure of it now, as the figure was only a few dozen yards away. It was-

"Merrill," he said, a slight tremor in his voice. It couldn't be. It was impossible. Not after Tantervale.

Her pale features were illuminated under the light of the moon. She was carrying a body that was also wrapped in heavy furs; limp, arms dangling.

Breaths. Quick and sharp, from pained lungs. He was certain he could hear it now, Merrill was gasping for air, limping desperately towards him as if there was safety beyond the face of the stone. She was so close. Sweat and blood covered her beautiful face in equal amounts, running in thick rivulets along her vallaslin, covering her cheeks, slicking her bangs to her forehead underneath her hood. Her eyes were wide with equal parts terror and bleak determination.

She was a stone's throw from him now. The hood slipped from her companion's head, revealing long, dark hair, head lolled back, eyes open and unblinking-

"No."

The next moment unfolded in a violent blur. Figures, more than a dozen of them, appeared at the edge of the forest. They shifted and floated, black and amorphous, ghosts perhaps, or wraiths or-

There was a thunderous boom, twin strikes of lightning arcing out over the field, Merrill screamed as hands, black and gnarled and clawed with rotted flesh exploded from the ground around her, some of them eight or nine feet in length; they surrounded her, engulfing her. With Hawke's corpse in her arms she was pulled into the earth, right before his eyes.

The thunder faded to silence. The wraiths vanished back into the forest and the earth settled, pushing itself back into place, snow and all, as if nothing had happened.

Light and life faded from the stone. Varric's own visage stared back at him once more, looking pale and frightened.

He took a tremulous breath and wiped his face, finding wetness on his cheeks, though from sweat or tears, he couldn't tell.

He placed the stone back on the table. It tapped and rolled on the wood from the shaking of his hand.

Varric looked to Anders. "It's a trick."

The blond man tilted his head to one side, his expression still unreadable. "Is it?"

"I don't know how you did it, I-I don't want to know- just get it away from-"

"Oh, piss off!" Anders said. "You're saying I did that? Cast an illusion? It doesn't work like that."

"You want to find Hawke, just like everybody else. You've cooked up some little-"

"Brilliant. That's lovely, Varric, thank you."

"You bring me this, this bullshit, sneak into my house in the middle of the night-"

"I couldn't very well have snuck into Kirkwall in broad daylight, could I?"

"You expect me to believe this?!" Varric shouted, standing, not caring about the quavering in his gravel-shot voice. "You expect me to believe that you and your little group of do-gooder mages-"

"I never said-"

"-in Tevinter, _Tevinter_ of all places, and don't think I'm soon to forget that fact, just happened to stumble upon a rock-"

"It took us years to sort through everything, Varric, we didn't just find it all of a sudden," Anders said softly.

Varric continued to talk over him. "A rock that just so happens to show, of all of the terrible things in the world it could've shown to you, it just so happens to show you _that_?!"

"No. If you'll just let me explain-"

"Fuck you."

Anders, stunned, sat back, looking up at the dwarf. Varric had never, in all the years he'd known him, said that in complete seriousness. It seemed a bigger shock to him than the bolt through his palm.

Varric wiped his mouth with a trembling hand. "Fuck you… fuck this. I'm sick of it. I was sick of it years ago. Idiot mages and idiot Templars, the constant bickering and the suffering, the total abject fucking misery, I'm sick of it..." His eyes shifted around him. "I'm sick of this ugly house and its ugly furniture."

He walked to the destroyed bookshelf and stared at the mess of books on the floor. "I'm sick of telling the same old stories to people who only listen out of pity or some sense of fading respect."

He stepped over the mess to the adjacent bookshelf and, gripping the edge against the wall, pulled.

Anders shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. "Varric."

The bookshelf toppled over with a crash, the sides bursting from the frames, books spilling out at either end.

Varric immediately jumped to his writing desk and, muscles straining, lifted it. Quills, inkwells, loose and crumpled pages rolled off just before the table lifted from the ground and the dwarf, showing a strength he hadn't felt in years, chucked it across the room.

The hundred-plus pound table sailed over the couch, a shocked Anders diving from his seat to the floor below. The table hit the wall beyond and exploded into thick chunks, fragments and splinters of wood.

Anders lifted his head. "Varric, stop!"

"I'm sick of drinking it all away; every nightmare, every bad memory, while people I care about are off in Maker-knows-what kind of danger." Varric kicked the liquor tray at the kitchen's entrance and sent two dozen varying bottles, and the cart with them, smashing into the kitchen, the sounds of breaking glass and splashing liquid echoing through the manse.

"Varric, it's not too late!"

The dwarf, not listening, clambered onto the dining room table. "I'm sick of living like my Stone-blighted brother!" He leapt from the table and grabbed the tapestry that hung above it. The Tethras family insignia sagged, shifted and finally, with Varric's weight against it, tore from the ceiling. Dwarf and tapestry fell together, back onto the table which immediately gave upon contact, snapping in two.

Varric slumped in the wreckage, breathing heavily, the tapestry fluttering down on top of him.

Anders waited in the following silence. The bundle of cloth in the middle of the broken table didn't move. "Varric."

The dwarf didn't respond.

"We were trying to break the stone's secret. We tried for months," Anders said quietly, stepping around the couch and slowly approaching the dining room, still wobbling on his feet from the earlier assault. "No success. Nothing worked. We could sense that there was a tremendous amount of magical energy in it, but nothing worked. We poured so much lyrium, all of the elemental magicks, dragon's tears, every formula and potion we could think of… we put everything into it, but it just ate it all up and gave nothing back. Eventually, I… I got desperate. I thought of Merrill, of how she would've handled the situation."

The bundle shifted. The tapestry pulled away and slipped to the floor, leaving a miserable looking dwarf, sitting dejectedly on his rear end, looking up at the mage. "Blood magic."

"A small cut. Right across the palm."

"Blood magic."

"Fuck _you_, friend," Anders said, smiling a little. "_I_ was sick of not knowing. And I would think that having a large group of mages all huddled around a stone for months, in _Tevinter_, as you so kindly pointed out, without anyone even considering the use of blood magic, would've been a good thing."

"Again," Varric said, "it just so happened to show you-"

"Varric." Anders interrupted, though with patience clear in his voice, "I was desperate. I thought of how Merrill would've solved the problem."

"That still doesn't explain-"

"Varric… I was thinking-"

It sunk in. Varric's eyes widened. "You were thinking of Merrill!" And just as suddenly, a look of blind panic crossed his face. "Then it's real-"

Anders shook his head. "It's a _portent_ stone. I mean, that's what we're calling it. It hasn't happened yet. Like I was trying to tell you while you were… redecorating, there's still time."

"How could you know that?"

Anders gave him an admonishing look. "What do I look like to you, a novice? Toying with my first fireball and setting scorch marks in the carpet? I'm a mage, and a Grey Warden, for that matter. I've beaten the best of them, run with the Warden-Commander _and_ the Champion of Kirkwall." He held out his hand.

Begrudgingly, Varric took it.

Anders pulled him to his feet. "I performed a scrying ritual, not minutes after seeing what you saw."

"And?"

Anders paused. He gave Varric a sheepish smile and scratched the back of his neck. "And… it kind of worked. I think they're safe… for now, anyway."

Varric hobbled back into the living room, beginning to feel the results of his breakdown. Anders followed behind him. "What do you mean, it 'kind of' worked?"

"Well, it showed me where they were, or are, just… where they are- it, it can't possibly be where they are."

Varric grabbed Bianca from the table she rested on and slung her over his shoulder, fitting her snuggly into the holster across his back. His lips thinned in a grimace. "You mean the map suggested they were in the sea?"

"Yeah…" Anders said slowly. "Good guess."

Varric grumbled, picked the stone off the table and tossed it to Anders. "In the sea in a little spot just off of the island of Estwatch. Southeast?"

Anders caught the stone. His brow furrowed and his mouth dropped open. "How in the blight did you know that?"

"Cause I've been lying to everyone. It's what I do best."

"I don't-"

"You scryed for Hawke, not Merrill. Cut out the candles and the hearth, would you? I may hate this place, but I don't want it to burn down while I'm gone."

Anders, still looking bewildered, stuffed the stone into a side-pocket of his robe. "I- wait, what?"

Varric winced, pulling a splinter from his thumb and limping to his bags in the center of the living room. "The fire?"

"Right." The candles and the fire in the hearth snuffed out all at once, and the two waited in the dark as their eyes adjusted to the moonlight pouring in through the oversized windows.

"You scryed for Hawke. Why didn't you scry for Merrill?"

"I didn't… have anything of Merrill's- listen, how do you know all of this? I thought nobody could find Hawke, that she and Merrill were off in parts unknown."

"Like I said, I lied. Honestly, I don't know where Merrill is," Varric replied, bending down to his satchels and opening one of them, "but she's not with Hawke. Hawke, thankfully, is right where I left her, it seems."

"You left her in the middle of the ocean?" Anders asked dryly.

Varric pulled a tin flask from his satchel and shook it, smiling at the sound of the mead sloshing within. "In a manner of speaking." He stuffed it back into the bag and stood up, grabbing the satchels and swinging them over his shoulder.

"So she isn't going to be very happy to see you, I take it."

"Well, let's put it this way," Varric said as the two of them limped past the destruction towards the foyer and the exit of his mansion, "however much I want to hurt you, Hawke wants to hurt me twice over. And however much that is, she probably wants to do three times what she'd do to me to you. So," he continued, his voice fading as they stepped outside and into the night, "if she kills me right out the gate, I'd brace myself, Blondie, because we both know how she likes to go for the groin first, and you're very best friend could be in some serious peril before she's done with-"

His voice became muffled as he shut the door, leaving the manse in a relative state of peace once more.

Had anyone still been in the living room, they might've seen the line of alcohol leaking from the kitchen enter the living room. Even if they'd missed that, they probably would not have missed the alcohol touching the last dribble of liquid fire from Varric's grenade that Anders hadn't put out, or the resulting spark of flame, and how it made its way back into the kitchen.

The next morning, no one in Hightown would miss the sight of smoke billowing from Varric's windows as the roaring fire devoured the mansion from within.

It wouldn't be a problem. Varric, though he was unaware of this at the time, would never see the inside of the mansion again. Nor, in fact, would he ever again step foot in the city of Kirkwall.

* * *

Thanks to Skeasel for her continuing and tireless Beta support.


	4. Chapter 3: A Name For People Like You

A/N- Thanks again to Skeasel for her excellent beta work. Reviews and criticism welcome.

CHAPTER 3 

A Name For People Like You

9:41 Dragon  
22nd Firstfall

The Free Marches  
Southern Base of the Vimmark Mountains

39 Days

They were now two days east of Kirkwall and Varric was beginning to chafe with the constant friction from the horse's saddle. As he and Anders rode towards Ostwick through the southern cliffs of the Vimmark Mountains, the pain in his thighs and thin air served to compound Varric's irritation. The fact that he was not headed in the direction of his intended destination (the lodge in Wildervale was over the mountain and in the opposite direction) and that the farther east they traveled, the uglier and more barren the locales got, only served to make matters worse.

The trail had, over the last half of a day, devolved into a narrow stretch of land between the cliffs leading to the sea below and the stark, unscalable rise towards the mountaintops. The land was rocky and uneven with thin strips of dead grass here and there. Given their altitude, everything was coated in a fine sheet of moisture, which meant the horses had to travel at a slower pace. Worse still, a cloud front had steadily moved down from the peaks above until they could only see clearly about ten yards in any direction. The view of the sea over the cliff-side had been swallowed up by the fog; not only had the trail lost its single pleasing aesthetic quality, but their pace had now slowed to barely more than a crawl.

"I think," Varric said, wiping wetness from his forehead, "I'm beginning to understand why no one I know rides horses. We could do this faster walking."

A few steps ahead of him, Anders brushed a hand through his hair, trying to get the damp strands to stop sticking to the back of his neck with little success. "I always thought it was because no one could find a damned horse."

As if in response, Anders' horse, a chestnut mare with big brown eyes and a blonde mane, whinnied and shook her head.

"Hey, hey," Anders said to the mare, "take it easy. Don't I take you to the nicest places? I mean, look at all of this… damp, empty rockiness."

Stroking the dark mane of his smaller, Orlesian black pony, Varric said, "Don't talk to your horse, Blondie."

"This from the man who has, on more occasions than I care to remember, gotten into drunken arguments with his crossbow… who more often than not has won."

Varric attempted to judge the current distance between the mountainside and the cliffs. He guessed it was about thirty feet. With them being roughly in the middle, leaving fifteen feet on either side, and a horse able to, at a moment's notice, gallop at seven or eight feet in a matter of seconds…

"Bianca can't suddenly decide to chuck you off the side of a cliff… well, she can, but she's a lot less likely to."

"Point taken," Anders said. He stroked the mare's mane and bent down, whispering what sounded like an apology in her ear.

The road ahead began to rise after a while, slowly but noticeably, with boulders looming ominously ahead, resting uneasily against the mountainside as though weighing the pros and cons of rolling downhill at any moment.

Varric adjusted in his saddle again, trying to ignore the discomfort on his thighs. "What did you mean, back at the manse-"

"What?" Anders shouted back. The mage, while Varric hadn't been looking, had gained several yards, and was too far away. His shout reverberated off the mountainside.

Several fist-sized rocks clattered down the rocky slope next to Varric, as if drawn to the sound of the human's voice. He eyed them and the boulders ahead warily, pulling a little on the reins of the pony, who begrudgingly increased his speed.

When he'd caught up with Anders, he said, "Slow down," as quietly as he could.

Anders looked back at him and rolled his eyes, obligingly slowing his horse. "At this rate, we won't reach Estwatch until the new year."

"Now's not the time to start making up time," Varric said. "Back at the manse, you said you didn't have anything of Merrill's, so you couldn't scry for her to get her location."

Anders nodded. "Right…" Off of Varric's blank expression, he continued. "When you're trying to magically locate a person, you need a personal effect. Something they carried or owned, something that meant something to them. It doesn't always work, but-"

"What did you have of Hawke's," Varric asked.

Anders gave his a bemused smile. "What difference does it make?"

"Just answer the question, Blondie."

Anders returned his gaze to the trail ahead. "I didn't. Have anything of Hawke's, I mean. I used a Tevinter amulet she gave me once."

"And that worked?"

"Thankfully. Apparently, at one point our friendship meant something to her. Otherwise, I would've been staring at an empty map of Thedas."

"Will wonders never cease," Varric added.

Anders ignored his sarcasm and for a moment the two of them rode in silence, horses clopping and distantly, very distantly, there was the constant crash of waves against rocks below.

Anders grinned.

Varric raised a brow with suspicion. "What?"

"It's nothing."

"What is it?"

"You…" Anders smiled at him, "You've been calling me 'Blondie' again for a while now."

Varric made a face. "Don't read too much into it."

"Right," Anders laughed. "Sure."

"I mean it. It's just a lot more comfortable than saying 'Anders.'"

"Sure, sure."

Varric harrumphed, frustrated. He shook his head. "There should be a name for people like you."

"People like me? Mages, you mean?"

"No. People, idiots-"

"Hey, thanks."

"-idiots, mired in politics-"

"Politicians, then? Theologians, philosophers, master debaters, I'm a _great_ master debater, you might even call me a professional master debater, I don't even need anyone else to be in the room when I master debate-"

"The likelihood of Bianca chucking you off this cliff is growing by the second, just so you know."

"There's a word for everything, Varric."

"Don't ever say that to a writer, Blon- _dammit_,"

Anders laughed.

Varric glared at him. "No. Someone who gets so wrapped up in a cause against man or government, law or rule or philosophy, that they take drastic action to scare everyone into agreeing with them, or to change the world to better suit them."

Anders' smile slipped from his face. "I didn't… I mean, my point wasn't to… I wasn't wrong, Varric."

Varric opened his mouth to respond, but Anders quickly threw his hand up.

"The point! The point wasn't wrong. Maker, if I could've done it some other way, if I could… if I could take back the, the deaths…" He looked gravely out at an ocean he couldn't see. "But I can't. If those people, good or bad, if they hadn't died, I and every other mage would still be living in fear, most of us trapped within the confines of stone towers, locked away from the world like beasts to be chained."

"There should be a name for people like you."

The incline they were walking up continued to get steeper. Now with every step of the horses hooves on the ground, Varric could see bits of grit and pebbles shake loose and start rolling back down the path behind them. He had a horrible image of one of the horses getting spooked in the fog and bucking up, failing to keep balance on two legs, horseshoes skidding on the slippery, dew-wet rocky terrain beneath, horse and rider falling backwards at a rough angle, the edge of the cliff a breath away with naught but sharp death beneath a veil of thick, white mist-

Varric pinched his brow with thumb and pointer finger, squeezing his eyes shut. "Fear-monger, scare tactician, horrorizer-"

"Freedom fighter," Anders said, not without a semblance of pride.

Varric barked a short laugh, opening his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous."

Anders smirked. "What, I don't get to play?"

"By all means, feel free. That's just a silly name."

"Why? I fight for freedom. Freedom fighter."

"It sounds more like freedom stole your sweet roll and you're looking to get it back."

"Stole my sweet roll?"

"Picture Broody having a conversation with a mage from Tevinter who called himself a freedom fighter, how do you suppose he'd see it?"

Anders reached into a pack at the side of his saddle and pulled out a hardbound, leather canteen.

"Alright, I'm picturing it," he said, unscrewing the cap. "Mage says something like, 'Oy there, elf; my those are some pretty tattoos. How fares your day?'" Anders took a swig with one hand, his other back on the reins as the chestnut took a sharp turn to avoid a large bedrock outcropping. "Who are you to speak to me, human?" This voice, clearly an imitation of Fenris, pulled a chuckle from Varric.

"'Why of course, I'm a mage from Tevinter, and I'd like to think of myself as a fre-uck, gluck,'" Anders clasped a hand to his chest, mocking the throes of death. "'OH! Oh, the horror, that's a hand inside my chest, crushing my squishy bits! For the love of Andraste, please, tell Mitsy… ugh, that I love her!'" He leaned back on the horse, head towards the sky, gurgling, water spilling out the sides of his mouth as if it were blood.

Laughing, Varric clapped. "Bravo, Blondie. I'm sure that's exactly how it would've gone. Doesn't stop freedom fighter from being a silly name, though."

Anders took another gulp from the canteen and shrugged, replacing the cap and tossing it to Varric. "A far sight better than 'scare tactician', I think."

Varric drank from the canteen, feeling the water run down the back of his throat and cool the burning warmth in his chest. He smacked his lips, thinking. "Terrorist."

Anders gave him a long, calculating look. "Piss off."

"What? Doesn't mean you wouldn't go home at night and kiss Mitsy and the kids, make a nice meal."

"Piss off."

"'Freedom for every mage, by any means necessary,' right? I think that's it. Terrorist. Anders the terrorist."

"Give me back my canteen. Terrorists don't sound like they share their water."

"How about, 'Blondie, the terrorist,' then?"

Anders seemed to contemplate this. "…alright, one more swig, _then_ you can die of dehydration."

Varric nodded. He sealed the canteen and, as the horses rejoined around another outcrop, placed it back into Anders' side-saddle pouch himself.

"Hey. Ahead there," Anders said, pointing up the incline, "looks like we might be catching a break."

Varric saw what he meant. As they continued up the trail, they appeared to be cresting the fogbank. With any luck, they'd be reaching better visibility and drier land within the next hour.

"Looks that way."

Anders smiled, grabbing the reins with both hands and steadied himself, seeming slightly renewed at the chance for better weather. Varric unconsciously imitated the action.

The mage looked to him and his smile fell a little. "Varric, do you really think… y'know… she wouldn't really kill one of us, right?"

"Only if we show up together."

"I'm being serious, dwarf."

Varric shot him a look, all humor having left his face. "So am I. When we get to Hercinia, I'm putting you up in an inn for the night. I'll take a boat myself-"

"Don't be stupid-"

"-I'll _take a boat myself_ past Estwatch. It'll be a day there and back, at the most."

Anders scoffed. "The two of you are closer than blood, I don't believe for a second that she'd take a dagger to you. How long has it been since you last saw each other?"

"Three years."

"Well, they say that time heals all wounds."

"Medicine and magic heal wounds, Blondie, time just amplifies the process."

"I was speaking metaphorically."

"So was I. You think you're the only one with magic? Words are the most potent magic in the world, and when wielded with grace and talent they can mend broken hearts and make blind men see."

"So what's the problem?"

"None of us were graceful or talented. We were a band of horny idiots and fools, and when wielded by idiots, words rend hearts asunder and _everyone_ winds up blind. And if left that way, time still amplifies the process. After three years, we're just miserable husks stumbling around in the dark."

"…Maker," Anders said. "What happened?"

"Nothing we're going to talk about."

"Varric-"

"I said it's nothing we're going to talk about. Period. This is one story that doesn't get told."

Anders' lips thinned and his brow furrowed, though from annoyance or hurt feelings, Varric couldn't tell. "Why not? …look, I know I'm no one's idea of a great guy right now, but I wasn't the only lying bastard in our merry band of fools and idiots to betray everyone's trust, and I'd like to think that when it all comes down, seven years of having someone's back actually means something."

"All past grievances aside, Blondie, it's got nothing to do with you or what you did. I just don't like telling stories with unhappy endings nobody deserved. You don't go through so much shit and blood, tragedy and deceit and heartache just to have it end like it did." Varric tasted bile in his mouth. He spit, wishing he'd taken another sip from the canteen. "You don't just throw in a dead kid and a twist at the end of it for some bullshit melodramatic flair, and any writer, man or Stone or Maker who would, should be tarred and feathered and dragged through the streets. He should have his testicles removed forcibly by a frenzied mabari-"

"Varric, what are you talking about? What kid, what twist?"

Varric felt the rarest of things, his throat constricting around a lump and tears building up behind his eyes as the fog finally began to clear a little. He blinked furiously and cleared his throat, gave the reigns a short, sharp tug and pressed the sides of the black pony with his boots. He picked up in speed, clopping past Anders and up the trail.

"It's over. And I'm done talking for a while."

Resigned, the mage followed suit.

Still, try as he might, Varric couldn't outrun the memories.


	5. The Nevarran Job 4 of 5: How Many?

A/N - Thank as always to Skeasel for the beta. Thanks also to Sphinxes and fifespice for their reviews.

* * *

Translate this into hieroglyphs;  
'Your sandy vagina has a seven year itch!'

Marilyn Monroe (via Peter Shukoff)

THE NEVARRAN JOB - 4/5

How Many You Got, Hawke?

9:38 Dragon  
09th Solace

The Free Marches  
The Outskirts of Tantervale

3 Years Ago

ISABELA

"Merrill, set the cows on fire!"

Isabela had been dancing with five men, her blades and the open sky all around her on the suspended bridge, flipping her hair and laughing and slitting one of her partner's throats open when Hawke shouted that. Such an odd thing this was to hear that she stumbled in her little performance of death and the arterial spray she usually liked to avoid (unless she was trying to impress someone) hit her directly in the face, blinding her with sticky red matter.

"Shit," she shouted, trying to blink the blood out of her eyes unsuccessfully.

A gruff voice nearby said, "Gotcha now, bitch," and there was a flurry of footsteps to her left. She raised one dagger in the air above her and heard the contact of steel on steel, immediately thrusting her other blade directly in front of her, feeling that wondrous, exhilarating sensation of a cold, sharp edge piercing the flesh of an enemy and drawing forth the warmth they kept inside.

The battle had been raging for the better part of an hour now. She was tired and bloodied, separated from the rest of the group. Stranded on top of a thin, wooden bandit's bridge about thirty-five feet in the air and surrounded by at least three more men. Worse still, she was blinded by blood. Yet every time Isabela killed someone who was trying to kill her, the adrenaline rush made her positively giddy and, frustratingly, more than a little horny.

The man stuck to Surfeit, her right hand dagger, was gurgling out an unmistakable death-rattle, which meant two things. He was no longer an adequate dance partner and, more importantly, she was still blind and wasting time.

More footfalls fell behind her, heavy and looking to take advantage of her current predicament. She turned, dragging the dying bandit with her, attempting to use his body as a quick shield against the coming blow. That was, at least, until his feet met open air beyond the walkway and he slipped from the dagger, falling off the ledge down to the bloodstained, green valley floor below.

"Merrill!" Hawke's voice had risen into desperation and there was the clear clanging of axe on sword in between her words, "I said set the blighted cows on fire!"

Isabela felt white-hot pain travel down the length of her left shoulder as the swing of a long sword made contact with her bare skin, parting the flesh. She grunted, side-stepping, flexing her grip on The Miller, her left hand dagger, making certain it didn't slip from her bloodied grasp. She deflected the next two thrusts with Surfeit and lashed out with her right leg, kicking her attacker in his stomach and knocking the wind from his lungs, causing him to stumble backward.

She took the opportunity to back up several feet in the opposite direction.

"No," Merrill shouted back with equal parts defiance and exhaustion from somewhere across the field beneath her, "I'm not burning anything that moos, I'd never forgive myself!"

Isabela was about to wipe the mess from her eyes when the hairs on the back of her neck rose and she sensed imminent death rushing at her from either side. She took the only option left.

She jammed her daggers in their leather holsters along her back, ignoring the screaming pain from her shoulder, twirled at a forty-five degree angle and took a single step back, directly off the bridge, raising her hands and hoping that she'd judged the distance correctly.

As the busty rogue had learned over the years, there were positives and negatives to almost any decision made during performances like this. Sometimes the scales didn't weigh evenly but, considering that she was still alive and robust after dancing with as many men as she had, she'd come to trust her instincts when a split-decision had to be blindly made. Literally, as the case sometimes was.

The two bandits who'd been charging at her couldn't stop their momentum and wound up striking each other instead. One's war axe cleaved into a skull, the other's great sword did an impressive job of a brutal disemboweling, a steaming pile of intestines slopping out onto the wood.

Unfortunately, Isabela had ever-so-slightly misjudged the length of the walkway in her attempt to drop down and grab the ledge. She hadn't stepped back far enough. This became apparent the second her ample chest hit the ledge followed by her nose, which cracked on contact, knocking her head back.

Somehow, through the grace of the Maker, her hands still found purchase, and she dangled a moment, stunned, unable to breath, blood flowing freely from both nostrils in a near-fountain. The pain in her left shoulder became too great to bear and she released her grip, holding herself up with her right hand alone.

"Rivaini," a tired voice cried up at her, "you good?"

Isabela found her breath, filling her lungs, breathing in deeply. She took the opportunity to finally wipe the blood and viscera from her eyes with her left hand.

"I busted my nose."

"I saw that."

There was more incomprehensible shouting from a scuffle nearby, Hawke's voice being the only clear thing. "Damn it, Merrill! _Now_!" She sounded as though she was at the end of her rope.

Ignoring Hawke, Isabela asked, "Am I still pretty?"

"Bianca certainly thinks so."

She blinked as her vision returned and she instantly wished that it hadn't. It was a long way down. "Balls," she whispered.

Varric, standing amidst a slew of corpses, was staring up at her, a fresh gash and a thick sheen of sweat on his forehead and several tears in his leather duster. Bianca, gripped tightly in his hands, looked completely fine. It said something about a man who would treat his weapon with a greater sense of preservation than he did himself. Exactly what it said, Isabela wasn't sure, but she knew that she liked it very much.

"Fine," Merrill shouted from beyond Isabela's field of vision. In the distance, something _whoomphed_ in a small explosion, which was immediately followed by two dozen angry moos.

She was about to tell Varric how good his chest looked from this angle when the boards of the bridge creaked and she glanced up. The last bandit on the bridge was standing above her, holding a long, curved sword.

She gave him her best 'but I'm so sexy' pout, despite the broken nose suggesting she not make any more facial expressions. "Don't suppose you'd give a lady second to catch her breath?"

The bandit, a handsome, shirtless man with dark hair and tanned leather breeches, grinned back her. "Sure, sweetheart," he said, stepping on her fingers, "I'll give you all the time in the world."

The pain, adding to the nose and sore body, pounded in her temples.

Then there was the familiar twang of Varric's crossbow and a shock of air passed her head, tousling the locks of hair that spilled out beneath her blue bandanna. The handsome bandit jerked backwards with a shout, a bolt in his shoulder.

Isabela swung her body forward, building momentum. "Thanks!"

"No prob- oh shit!"

Isabela didn't have time to see what was wrong. With every ounce of strength she had left she pulled herself up onto the bridge, using the body of one of the two dead bandits to help her. As she swung her legs up behind her and rolled fully onto the bridge, over the bandit she was using for balance, she landed in the pile of wet intestines from his gutted stomach. She grimaced and backed up onto her haunches, just as the handsome bandit was getting to his feet.

Growling, Isabela launched herself at him, jamming her wounded shoulder into his bare stomach and wrapping her arm around him, pushing him onto his back. His sword clattered on the wood several feet away.

Isabela grunted, wishing she'd used her other shoulder.

Grappling with him, she could see through the cracks in the boards. "Oh, shit."

The bandit, out of breath, stopped struggling to get her off of him. "What?"

She rolled them over until he was on top of her and jerked her head, motioning for him to look down.

His dazzling blue eyes left hers and widened as he saw the stampeding herd of flaming cows rushing beneath them, with one very anxious dwarf clinging to a cliff side, trying to avoid being trampled to death.

The bandit swallowed nervously. "Oh, shit."

Isabela and the bandit watched the cows wind their way up the incline and around the bend in the land, disappearing around the rise. There was only one route they could travel, up the hill and towards the cliff the bridge was connected to.

"Dammit, Hawke," Isabela grumbled.

"They're not going to slow down, are they?"

Isabela shook her head.

The bandit, still straddling her waist, leaned forward. She appreciated the view of his sweaty abs, wishing her nose wasn't filled with blood so she could get a good whiff of musk. At least until the point where she heard his sword scrape against the boards as he picked it up.

"Well, then," he said, "guess I'll have to make this qui-"

She reached up, grabbed the bolt in his shoulder and twisted it at an angle.

He reared back, sword in hand, screaming in pain.

With her other hand, Isabela quickly pulled Surfeit from its scabbard along her back and slashed the blade along his chest, drawing a thick line of blood.

As she angled the next strike to thrust the dagger inwards, the bandit failed blindly at her with his sword, the flat of the blade landing solidly against her wounded shoulder. She lost her grip on the bolt and he leapt from her, struggling to keep his balance on the bridge and clamping a hand across his bloody chest.

Isabela scrambled to her feet, twirling the pommel of her dagger in her fingers.

The hunched bandit chuckled, whirling the blade back and forth. "I'm going to enjoy sticking you deep, bitch," he said, sneering. He didn't seem quite as handsome like this.

"If I had a silver for every time I've heard that," she replied, lunging at him with Surfeit.

He took two small steps back, striking her blade with his. "Then what?" He swung the sword down at her in a sharp angle.

With remarkable speed, Isabela whipped the Miller out, pushing past the pain in her left shoulder and jumping forwards, blocking the blow with the flat of the dagger and swiping Surfeit at his face, forcing her opponent to jerk his head back to avoid having a permanent grin.

"I wouldn't be on this bridge," she said, continuing to press him back, buffeting him with attacks from both daggers, forcing him to focus on blocking over countering.

The bandit gave a breathy laugh, continuing to back up along the bridge. They were nearly at the end of it, back onto the grass-covered cliffside. "Bullshit," he said, "where the hell else would you be?"

Switching tactics as the pain in her wounded shoulder grew searing, she put all her strength in to a series of heavy strikes with Surfeit, keeping her forward momentum. She punctuated each strike with her tired, angry response. "Off the coast," _clang,_ "of Rivain," _clang_, "on a boat," _clang_, warm and drunk!"

The last strike did not end with the clang of met steel as she used his focus on blocking Surfeit to dance inward and swiftly jab the Miller into his side. He gurgled, stunned, dropping his sword. "A very," quick stab to the shoulder, "pretty," slash across the jugular, "boat!" And a thrust through the chest to the heart, bringing him to his knees, a soft sigh leaving his lips, his blue eyes glazing over, staring up at the sky.

…_Damn it._ Without the look of murder in his eyes, he was handsome again.

"Stick it to me, will you? Hmph." She withdrew her daggers in single, violent tugs and placed them back in their scabbards as he fell over. "Somehow I doubt you could've reached the depths I'm accustomed to anyway," she said, reaching down and gripping the bolt in his shoulder, yanking it from his flesh. She wiped the blood from it on his breeches and stood, placing it in between her belt and her tunic.

"Drat," she said, staring down at his pretty face. She ruffled his dark hair with her boot. "I should've thought of saying that when you were alive."

"Isabela!"

She glanced up at the cry, finally stepping off the bridge.

Hawke was just over the rise in the hill; pale, bloody and sprinting madly towards her, one of her daggers in her hand, a wild look in her eyes. She shouted something else Isabela couldn't understand.

"It's alright," Isabela called back as the beautiful woman kept pounding feet towards her, "I'm all done! Wanna tell me I'm a good girl and make out?"

Hawke didn't slow down. She slammed into the pirate, grabbing her by the arms. "Maker, Hawke, have it your way; tell me I'm a bad girl, that works too."

"What part of _run_ didn't you understand," Hawke asked, nearly hyperventilating, looking back the way she'd come.

"I didn't hear any…of…" That's when Isabela noticed that the ground was shaking. Bandits appeared over the rise, then. A lot of them. Heavily armed and running very, very fast.

"Oh, right. Forgot about them," Isabela said, sighing and drawing Surfeit yet again.

The act wasn't necessary. A second later, the bandits were trampled into the grass in dark showers of blood under the hooves of a blazing stampede of nearly two dozen extremely hearty and belligerent cows.

"OH, RIGHT!" Isabela cried fearfully, "forgot about them!"

Hawke grabbed her hand forcefully and pulled her back onto the bridge. The two of them sprinted for the other side, the bridge shaking and swinging wildly from the approach of the oncoming horde.

Just ahead of them, the two bodies of the men who'd rushed at Isabela from both sides and struck each other were rolling from side to side, jostled by the swinging bridge. Isabela leapt between them with ease, followed quickly by Hawke.

The bridge, at that moment, swung to the right, just as Hawke stepped on the intestines of the disemboweled bandit. She slipped, stumbled and pitched to the side, over the edge. Isabela grabbed her flailing arm, just as the first flaming cow rushed onto the bridge.

That was all it took.

The meager supports at the edge of the bridge snapped and the wooden floor beneath Isabela gave way as she tried to swing Hawke one-handed back onto the bridge.

With a shriek of sheer terror and one last blast of adrenaline, Isabela sunk Surfeit into the bridge as it became a wall before her, embedding the blade deeply in the wooden planking, clinging desperately to Hawke's arm with her left hand. The bridge, the pirate and the champion surged forward towards the wall of stone on the opposite cliff side, the air whipping around Isabela's face, ripping the bandana from her head, her hair spilling out and streaming behind her for several seconds before-

THWUMPH. The falling bridge slammed into the stone cliff side and Isabela and Hawke slammed into the bridge, the force of which popped Isabela's wounded left shoulder from its socket and she released her grip on Hawke, nearly blacking out, swallowing back the rush of bile in her throat as the pain hit in waves, one after the other, racking her body.

She hung there for what felt like an eternity, listening to the ground quake as cow after burning cow leapt to their deaths from the top of the cliff. She trembled and shook, her eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to open them, not wanting to see what had become of Hawke, cursing herself for not holding on. As silence finally fell over the valley, tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes. "Shit," she whispered. "Shit, shit, shit…"

She couldn't stop from imagining the look on Merrill's face as she found Hawke's crumpled form on the valley floor. _Not like this_, she thought to herself, _not because of cows_.

_Not because of me_. A sob wretched itself from her aching chest, escaping her lips.

"What's the matter with you," an amused, exhausted and pampered voice asked beneath her.

Isabela gasped, her eyes popping open. She craned her neck back, looking down to find Marian just beneath her, smiling and more than a little dazed, hanging onto her own dagger, which jutted from the bridge just as Isabela's was.

Isabela choked back a second sob of relief, averting her eyes from Hawke's. "Nothing. My arm's cut, and it needs setting, I think."

"Oh, that's all, is it?"

"No. I broke my nose, too. Earlier. The last time I was hanging from this blighted bridge. And I lost my bandana."

"Okay, sure, you got it," Hawke's tone disbelieving.

_Maker, but she's a smarmy bitch_. Isabela grimaced. "My tits hurt too."

"Well," Hawke said from between her legs, "you sure look fine from this ang-"

The other end of the bridge snapped, dropping them.

They fell the last twenty feet or so to the ground, landing amongst the smoking remains of a herd of dead cows.

Isabela crashed into a fleshy bovine stomach on her shoulder, which popped it back into place. Unable to stop herself a second time, she jerked her head to the side and vomited onto the carcass.

It was during moments such as these, of which there were many in Hawke's company, that the pirate's mind retreated to a happy place. A rocking ship, an ocean breeze and a captain's cabin with a lock on the door, a fully stocked liquor bar and an assortment of hard and wet vices, pretty and strong young things, sprawled out along a massive bed fit for four. And for a brief, wonderful time it was here that she stayed; resting her side against taut abs and nuzzling her face between pert breasts instead of lying in a field of corpses, smelling the thick scent of sex instead of the stench of burnt flesh and her own vomit. …well, the vomit was fifty-fifty, actually, but Isabela told herself it smelled better on an ocean diet anyway.

After a long while, when she'd finished revisiting everything she'd eaten in the last twelve hours and had grown tired of lying on the ground twitching, she shakily got to her knees and stood up, wiping her mouth.

Hawke was tramping around the bodies, examining the remains of the bridge.

"Hello," a lilting voice yelled nearby, around the corner of the cliff, "is everyone alright?"

Isabela, realizing what Hawke was doing, stumbled to another piece of the bridge and lifted it.

"Anybody? Well, I mean, if you're a bad person, you don't have to answer," Merrill called out, "you can just stay where you are. That would be fine."

Dropping the section of broken wood, Isabela eyed Hawke expectantly. "You going to answer her?"

The short-haired rogue muttered something about timeliness in response, her mood clearly having soured now that the adrenaline was fading. She chucked a loose board away from her, moving on to the next.

Isabela rolled her eyes. "Between the cliffs, Kitten!" She limped to the next bit of rubble, spotting a glimmer of steel despite the heavy shade. _Hawke's dagger_, she thought as she stepped closer, _from the look of the pommel_.

"Isabela?" Merrill peeked around the corner and spotted her and Hawke. "Ah, ma vhenan, there you are," Merrill said, trotting up to them, "I was getting a little worried."

"Oh, we were just fine, Merrill," Hawke said, her tone dry, "thanks for the cows."

"Ohh… no, would you look at that!" Merrill mewled softly, walking amongst the bovine bodies, using her staff like a walking stick. "This is just awful. …I'll never forgive myself."

Isabela pulled Hawke's dagger from the loose plank and brushed off the grit with the flap of her tunic. She turned to find Hawke doing the same thing with Surfeit. They exchanged appreciative glances and tossed the blades.

Isabela caught her dagger and sheathed it next to its partner, stepping over several corpses of cow and men alike to Merrill's side. The elf was crying a little, poking one of the cows with her staff as if doing so would simply wake it up.

She took Merrill by the shoulder and brushed the elf's bangs from her eyes. "Hey, it's all right, precious. Sometimes, when the chips are down, you have to go for broke. And we won't be going hungry for the last leg of the trip, that's for sure."

"Well, we can't very well eat _all _of them," Merrill sniffed.

"I think Varric might disagree with you there," Isabela said.

Merrill let out a reluctant giggle.

"Is the caravan alright?" Hawke asked, interrupting them.

Merrill blinked. "What?"

"The caravan, the Nevarran nobles, are they secure, Merrill?"

"Um," Merrill nodded, "yes, I believe so-"

"You believe so? Merrill, they were the one thing we had to protect out here, I gave you very simple instructions before we left to deal with the assault; 'keep the nobles safe.' Are they all right or not?"

"Yes, they were fine when I left them with Udina," Merrill said, her tone growing defensive, "completely, I made sure of it before I came looking for you, I'm not a fool."

"There, you see," Isabela grabbed a healing potion from Merrill's waist and popped the cork on the glass vial, "the cargo's fine. Unclench, woman," she said, pinching the bridge her nose, gritting her teeth and resetting it with an audible crack.

The pirate then quickly chugged the thick liquid, numbing the pain in her nose and the wound on her shoulder beginning to close in on itself at an accelerated speed.

When she lowered the vial from her mouth she passed it to Hawke.

"Tits feeling better?" The rogue asked before gulping down the remaining tonic.

"Much. How's the stick in your ass?"

Hawke tossed the empty glass aside, ignoring her. "Let's find Varric and get back to the-"

Isabela saw him at the last moment, from the corner of her eye. The handsome bandit, eyes rolled up in his head, blood caked to his neck and chest, lunging for her. He grabbed her shoulders, opened his mouth wide and leaned in as if to lick her neck.

He suddenly stopped with a single, violent jerk.

Isabela blinked in shock. She leaned back. Hawke's dagger was in one side of his head. A steel bolt was in the other.

"That's one more for the dwarf," a voice cried out victoriously from her left, "how many you got Hawke? Cause if it's less than fourteen, you owe me a sovereign!"

"That was my kill, Varric!" Hawke shouted back, yanking her dagger from the bandit's skull and stepping around Isabela as the body collapsed onto her. "And it puts _me_ at fourteen, which means you owe me _two_ sovereigns! I got two to one odds, or have you conveniently forgotten that again?"

"What?! That's my bolt in the blighter's temple, are you blind?"

Hawke glanced back at the bandit Merrill was helping Isabela extricate herself from. "Yeah, so? It only hit _after_ I put my blade in the other side." She waggled her dagger at him as he approached. "No points for shooting a corpse, Varric."

"Um, excuse me," Isabela interjected, brushing herself off and staring down at the bandit suspiciously, eyeing the broken bones from the fall, the slit throat and the wounds in his shoulder and chest, one of which was directly to the heart. _I watched him die_.

"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Hawke, if you'd have gotten him first, Bianca would've noticed it. It's two against one and Bianca never lies."

"Piss off, Bianca lies all the time! Didn't she tell you to tell Isabela there was gold in the bottom of the water-barrel in _The Wolf's Den_ when she was too loaded to reason with? Fenris that the owner of _The Hanged Man_ was secretly drowning puppies in the ale when you were still trying to get ownership? Or Merrill that dire bunnies were starting to burrow in the walls of homes in the Alienage and pop out late at night."

Merrill frowned and pursed her lips. "Evil little creatures. I never did sleep there aga-, wait, that wasn't true?"

"Excuse me!" Isabela said again, louder, "but neither-"

"You _paid_ me for that one, Hawke, or did you forget that? Just like you'll be paying me now. C'mon. One sovereign; cough it up."

"I'm not paying you a single copper, you stumpy prick! That was my kill!"

Varric pointed a finger, "Don't! …Call me stumpy, human."

"You _what_," Merrill asked incredulously, stepping to Hawke. "You paid him to scare me out of my bed, my home?"

"That-," Hawke flinched, sighing with frustration, "that wasn't your bed or your home anymore, remember? Your place was at the manse, with me."

"Oh, so it was that important to get me into your bed permanently then, but now you won't even-"

Hawke whirled to face the elf fully. "Now is definitely not the right time for that discussion."

"Well, when is?" Merrill asked, refusing to back down from a look which usually quieted her. "It wasn't the right time in Starkhaven, it wasn't the right time in Nevarra, it wasn't the right time last night or this afternoon, so when would be the right time… honestly," she said, beginning to lose her nerve as she rambled, "because when the right time does come up, and… I mean, if I missed it…if I didn't say anything at that moment and it passed, I-I'd be pretty broken up about it."

"If the right time comes up, I'll be the first to let you know, but I can pretty much guarantee that it will not take place in the middle of a field filled with dead men and burnt cows, alright?"

"What's happening?" Isabela asked, bewildered. She didn't even care about the handsome bandit returning to life at the moment, instead feeling a growing sense of dread as the three people before her continued to tear at each other.

"That's nice Hawke, why don't you comfort her a little more, I think there's still some bit of her heart you haven't stepped on yet," Varric said.

"You'll stay out of this, dwarf, if you know what's good for you. You're the reason she's even in this mess in the first place. I told you, I blighted _told_ you we were done with this."

"Yes, it sure took a lot of convincing, didn't it?" Varric said, stepping in, "One wave of a promissory note with that many zeroes and suddenly, 'I don't want her in any more danger,' sounded a whole lot more like, 'when do we leave? I'll get the gorp.'"

Hawke balled a fist up.

"'If'?" Merrill asked quietly.

"What?"

"'If', you said. You said, 'if the time comes.' Not when. So you mean there's a chance we won't even talk about this at all, no matter what's happening between-"

"Merrill," Hawke said in a low, trembling voice that bordered on rage, "not… now."

"Andraste's tits, Hawke, everybody knows. Daisy's not a child, you can't treat her like-"

"People with genuine emotions are speaking, right now, Varric," Hawke cut him off, "when I want an opinion on gold or bullshit, I'll ask you. Otherwise, do us all a favor and, for once in your damned life, shut your mouth."

"Hawke!" Merrill grabbed her arm.

"HEY," Isabela shouted, finally drawing the attention of all three of them, "What the fuck is happening? What are you doing?"

Hawke sneered, a darkness in her eyes. "And then there's _you_."

"Hawke, stop!" Merrill pleaded, "It's not what you think. She didn't have anything to do with it."

"Right," Hawke laughed bitterly, keeping her eyes on Isabela, "I'm supposed to believe you lost your innocence all on your own."

"You're being a fool," Merrill said, "I am _not_ a child!"

"I'll be the judge of that," Hawke approached Isabela.

Isabela stared back at the noblewoman, defiant and angry. She had no idea why Hawke was so enraged, why any of them were, actually, nor was it clear to her what she'd done (recently, anyway), but she'd paid her dues to these people, and for the first time in her life that she could recall, she wasn't about to walk away from this, no matter how much she might wish she had later. If this was what it was like to fight with blood, then this is what she'd do.

So she closed the distance between her and Hawke. "There's something you'd like to say to me, too?"

"You? The pirate queen of Rivain? No, what could I possibly have to say to you? You're an angel. A model citizen, never sullied a girl in your life."

"I never said I was an angel, and I've never touched Me-"

"Of course not, you're as pure as the driven snow."

"Knocking off the sarcasm might be a good start, gorgeous, or we'll be here all night."

Hawke shook her head. "You know, Isabela? I never judged you. All of the men, all of the women, all of the booze and all of the bad ideas, and I still said 'fine, not a problem, she might be a violent, drunken lout and a walking venereal disease, but at least she's loyal.' Unless, you know, there's a lot of money or a boat or decent sex involved, in which case, you're at least predictable to the point where I could see the knife coming, except for that one time you lied to my face for three straight years and then ditched me before your conscience, for once, caught up with you. But even then, after all of that, I never judged."

They were eye to eye now. Hawke lifted her fist. "But so help me, Isabela, if you ever come near Merrill with your filth again-"

"Damn it, Hawke, she didn't-"

Isabela grabbed Hawke's fist firmly. "My filth never touched Merrill," she said, surprised and mortified to hear the pain in her own voice, "_I_ never touched Merrill."

"No," Hawke replied in a flat tone, "you did worse than that. You tried turning her into a worthless, drunken whore like you."

Hawke didn't see the hit coming that dropped her to her knees. For that matter, neither did Isabela, and for a moment she thought her fist had acted of its own volition, before she looked dumbly down at it and saw that her hand was still at its side.

That's when she noticed Merrill, shocked at her own action, her staff still hanging in mid-air from where she'd struck her lover.

Hawke stumbled on the ground, holding her cheek. She coughed out a cold, hollow laugh. "Right. Brilliant. That's it. I'm done."

"Hawke, I-"

"Don't apologize, Merrill," Varric said, walking to her, "she had it coming. Didn't you hear her? She's done."

"No, you idiot," Hawke spat, getting to her feet, her gaze roaming over the three of them, "I mean I'm _done. _For seven years, seven long, interminable fucking years I've been carrying you people. I've been putting up with you, cleaning up your messes and handling your ridiculous emotional baggage and that's it! I'm saying, 'I am done'. You can carry yourselves from now on."

For a moment, the group was silenced; Varric, Merrill and Isabela watching Hawke walk past them, a look of grim determination in her eyes. That moment did not last long.

"You pompous, arrogant, stuck-up-"

"Hawke-"

"Let's see how far you make it on your own, _Champion_-"

She whirled around, shouting, "I mean it! When we reach Tantervale with those Nevarrans and collect our pay, you can go get your ship back, Isabela, and we'll see how long it takes you to lose it in a card game this time, because something tells me you'll be back to sloppy, drunken mercenary jobs on dry land in no time, and sloppy, drunken blowjobs on any land in less time than that. And you can slink back to Kirkwall, Varric, and sell your bullshit to anyone who'll pay to listen, although without a brother to create capital ventures or me to create any sort of interest in your life whatsoever, I see that list of paying customers dwindling pretty fucking fast…"

"And what about me, ma vhenan?" Merrill asked.

Hawke paused, confused. "What about you?"

"Where will I go?"

"…You're coming with me, Merrill, that's not going to change."

"Why? Because I'm a child, who needs looking after?"

"Because you're mine."

"So what," Merrill said, every ounce of fear and emotion drained from her voice. "I'm yours. And what do you do with me? Set me on a high shelf and tell the guests that they can look but they can't touch, she's fragile and she breaks easily? Put me down in expensive sheets and torture yourself by refusing to handle me the way you'd like to, the way _I'd_ like to be handled? Tell me over and over of how sweet and innocent I am when we both know that's not true, that I grew up years ago in your company and in your arms and you just refuse to let it be. No, I don't think so. I can protect others and I can handle myself."

"You're not going anywhere on your own, Merrill-"

"Because I'm a child?"

"Yes!"

"And what does that make you?" She asked, seemingly with genuine curiosity.

Hawke stood there for a long time, staring back at her. Finally she brushed her fingers through her hair and along her cheeks. "Tired. It makes me tired… I'm going back to the caravans and I'm going to sleep. At least I know that this will all be much, much worse when I wake up."

They walked in silence across the field.

When they reached the road they were greeted by a cloud of smoke, underneath which the two wagons roared in flames.

They broke into a run, each of them praying that the nobles had escaped to safety, hope dwindling with every step.

Because the smell of burnt human flesh hung heavily in the air.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE ON ARTHUR'S NOTE(S)-** Sometimes in writing, as is true in many other activities one performs whilst amongst the living, you get tired. On fortunate days, you have the wherewithal to close the laptop or put the desktop to sleep and turn off the monitor and you fall into bed and let that be the end of it.

On the not-so-fortunate days? Well, the following can happen. You get loopy without even recognizing the fact that you're tired. You keep on writing as if everything were fine, but strange things begin to happen. Ideas that would seem outlandish and out-of-place begin to make perfect sense, sex and violence become far more important than they should (not that they aren't very, _very_ important) and everything can take on an air of being set to the beat of a metronome until finally, dialogue and prose spiral into little more than gibberish.

This was all compounded by two things; one, that I had finally reached the first flashback chapter, which also happened to be the chapter that contains the idea that started this entire story. Varric yelling, "That's one more for the dwarf! How many you got, Hawke?" and Hawke throwing an absolute temper-tantrum after having heard this same line for nearly ten years. And secondly, that this was the first time I was writing from Isabela's perspective, a character pretty much defined by a mixed bag of violence, sex and alcohol.

Eventually, I did fall asleep. Laptop still on my chest, electronic cigarette resting in the crook of my arm. When I came out of the self-induced coma, I found myself reading through two horrific scenes. An utterly unusable chapter that read like a narration of a music video on MTV (directed by a coke-addled student of Michael Bay, performed a death metal band and starring Miley Cyrus with massive breast implants cosplaying as a blood-spattered, dark-haired pirate) and a series of 'Arthur's Notes' that rambled on for two and-a-half pages about daggers and sex.

In my loopy state, I had apparently decided that it was a super idea to give Isabela Jarvia's Shank and Beraht's Revenge, the two daggers from the first Rogue Item Pack. Only I didn't want to call them as such because '_Jarvia's Shank and Beraht's Revenge_' are a sequence of letters that is rather cumbersome to type repeatedly, so I called them Jarvia and Beraht instead, and subsequently felt the need to explain my actions. So that's how the following series of notes began. How it got to where it winds up? Your guess is as good as mine.

The chapter is gone, for the most part. Whatever remains of it was in the material you just read(i.e. a herd of cows on fire, the bridge being the major setting of the first half, a few lines of dialogue). But I have left Arthur's Notes fully intact as a cautionary tale of writing tired. (Actually it's because I enjoy laughing at myself, but the first reason sounded better.)

One final **warning**, that word being in bold (and should probably be in all caps) so as to catch the attention of people who might be skimming this. The following, as it progresses, becomes increasingly vulgar. I know that there are far more descriptive and grotesque things available on this site, but the **WARNING** is there nonetheless:

Here there be perverts.

* * *

**ARTHUR'S NOTE(S)* - *******

*****This is to those vets of Origins and DAII with the Rogue Item Packs who might've been saying, "Hey, wait a second, shithead! Those aren't the names of the daggers, you tool! If you're gonna do it, do it proper, or eat my mighty Warden-Commander's boot! He/She didn't run through the Carta Underground for four and-a-half goddamned hours on Normal/Hard/Nightmare difficulty one night in Origins just so that you can get the names of the fucking daggers wrong, bucko! Do you have any idea how annoying it is to run around a massive map with idiot companions setting off traps every fifteen feet, or the fact that there even were traps every fifteen feet! Get the names right!"

C'mon, what do you want from me? Do you really want me to write the daggers' names in full _every single time_ they're mentioned? If I do it once, I can't just stop, because then that would be the name of the fucking dagger. Beraht's Revenge, Jarvia's Shank. "Hi, these are my daggers, Beraht's Revenge and Jarvia's Shank. They'd like to dance. Now you're dead in a pool of your own blood, mister bandit jerk-off, and 'jerk-off' begins with the letter 'J' and 'bandit' and 'blood' both start with a 'B' and just so you know, the letters 'B' and 'J'****** were brought to you today by Beraht's Revenge and Jarvia's Shank."

"Why not nicknames, then?" You ask. "Introduce them as Beraht's Revenge and Jarvia's Shank, but then just have Isabela calling them Beraht and Jarvia after that."

A.) Because the operative words here are not Beraht or Jarvia, but rather Revenge and Shank. Both daggers stand for something. When Beraht died, Jarvia, his first-in-command and ever-constant fuck buddy, as is quite evident, lost her friggin' marbles. And don't tell me otherwise, because no sane motherfucker lays down twenty-seven thousand trigger-wired explosives in their own **extremely well-hidden** crime den. Just imagine the daily on-the-job casualty reports from her subordinates failing to remember where every single wire was. Why else would she have had to bring in so many outside contractors into _Orzammar_, the capitol of the Fuck Tall People nation? There were a lot of Tal-Vashoth and elven assassins with puckered buttholes walking around that place on pins and needles, let me tell you, friend; everyday life in the Carta Den probably looked like a scene out of Scooby Doo, watching the crew of The Mystery Machine creeping around a haunted mansion and praying to Christ that the asshole janitor did it so that Scoobs and Shaggy wouldn't freak the fuck out in some pot-fueled frenzy at the first sign of paranormal activity, and if you even mention that little shit-stain Scrappy I'll…

Um, I seem to have gotten off-topic. Oh, right, the operative words are Revenge and Shank, because Jarvia became the leader after Beraht's quite timely demise and used those daggers to rain a shit parade of misery down on her enemies (and subordinates), effectively putting the shop-owners and the commoners of Orzammar into a choke-hold. There's depth and passion in her shank and her dead fuck buddy's vengeance, and I can't screw around with that.

B.) Because using nicknames suggests a level of familiarity with her weapons that borders on 'friendly', which is intruding on occupied ground, if you know what I mean. Bianca is the only belle of the ball at this party, my friends.

"Okay," you say, "then why not use Heartbreaker and Backstabber or Fiona and Bard's Honor?"

First of all, Heartbreaker and Backstabber were effectively useless beyond their names, which I'm happily willing to admit are some of the best uses of foreshadowing I've ever seen in a videogame, and secondly because those were specifically meant as elements of storytelling which, once all was said and done and you decided to duel Senior "I'm about to chase your ass around the room for the next twenty minutes and skewer you in the least glamorous boss battle in years," {discounting Space Magic Boy, that scummy little twat}, didn't mean anything after that. Isabela, like all the characters, develops and becomes more than she was at the start. So she most certainly should not still be using them, for _any_ reason, beyond writing a story or flashback chapter within the setting of the first two Acts.

As for Fiona and Bard's Honor? Well, to be honest, once I'd begun the Nevarran Job 4/5, and realized the rocky road I'd started to walk down by mirroring my actions in the game (if my FemHawke was romancing Isabela, they'd share. One axe and one dagger a piece. If Hawke _wasn't_ romancing her or if she simply couldn't resist Merrill when the dainty little thing traipsed awkwardly into her foyer and started rambling, then they'd go back to individual sets; but one thing was certain once I had both Rogue Item Packs; the Revenge, the Shank, Fiona and Bard's Honor would always be in play) I _did_ attempt to rewrite it so that Isabela had the axes. But I found in the writing of it that Isabela simply doesn't gel with axes like she does with daggers.

Isabela is a force of nature, a dusky goddess smelling of brine and ocean winds and the exotic oils of distant lands, and whether or not all of this is done in an effort to mask the otherwise overbearing stench of booze and burped semen*******, she is an artist of sorts, and you can't paint the canvas she uses red with the kind of flourish she has by putting axes in her hands. She's a dagger girl.

So, essentially and to wrap this up before I delete the whole thing out of a hatred of pointless verbosity (who am I kidding?), I guess I'm trying to explain that I consider these daggers to be non-canon canon. They are Jarvia and Beraht, two daggers heavy with lore that the good Lady Hawke came upon in her travels and bequeathed unto her besty Isabela as a way of saying "I love you, stay alive, if at least because you're a really good lay." Where they have been and why they were named as such is up to you to decide as I leave the matter in your very capable hands, but vengeance and shanking are no longer a part of the equation.

****** Tee-hee, BJ. I swear, I didn't do that on purpose. I was doing the Sesame Street shtick. I didn't realize until after I'd put apostrophes around the letters what was happening, and then stopped to giggle for longer than was appropriate for a man in the latter half of his twenties.

***** **Yes, that's right; burped semen. Let's be realistic, people, birth control in this land consists of waiting for menopause******** or that rare _fortunate_ fall down a flight of stairs. The day Isabela lets any man plant a load inside of her is the day pigs find out that clouds aren't giant, edible fluffs of cotton and Fred Phelps wakes up bright and early, throws back the curtains, opens a window and shouts to the world, "Would someone please, for the love of all that is holy, bring me some cock!"

Which, oddly enough, I'm fairly certain Isabela has shouted on more than one occasion. Because, as is made evident through both games, she is a highly proficient and very skilled lover with a monstrous sexual appetite and, ahem, seeing as this is the case, there is no way in hell that she'd simply let a man… y'know, spend himself on the sheets or the floor or the deck or the grass (unless he was especially gross and Isabela simply had to scratch an itch, in which case, I'll grant you she's probably just going to be burping the booze it took to fuck him in the first place). Otherwise? As the nun said to David Duchovny, "Well, something tells me it's not gonna suck itself, Hank."

It might be slutty, but it's also the mark of a true craftsman. And Issy's no slouch.

******** Wynne, I think, not being a slut and knowing that she has already popped one out (ugh, another brow-beating 'the good of the many' Communist running around in Thedas, it's enough to make a motherfucker wretch at the thought) probably had a great deal more sex in her later years. Not that any of that sex entailed blowjobs, mind you. Wynne has always stricken me a missionary first, cowgirl second and only when intoxicated.

I'm just spit-balling here, but with all of the sexy talk in the party banter between her and the guys, albeit ninety-nine percent being harmless flirtation amongst getting-to-know-you chitchat, I think there's one percent wildcat in there, and methinks that once she decided to travel with Shale, after Urthemiel bit the big one, instead of returning to the Circle and helping with the rebuilding efforts, she probably became quite the cougar, prowling around towns at night searching for easy prey. Yes, menopause has its ups as well as its downs, I suppose.

Still, this shouldn't dissuade anyone from shooting her on sight.*********

******* **This message has been approved and paid for by the ECCHF.

Evil Commie Cougar Hunting Force, unite!


End file.
